Little Cards

“How much good can one little card do? It can’t save a soul.”
This is the question presented to me.   The quick answer is, Your absolutely right.  One little card can’t save a soul, nor can I.  The good news is,  God did not ask me to save a soul, he asked me to plant a seed.   Growing the seed is up to him.

The longer answer: For a long time now I’ve struggled with the age old question, Why am I here and what is my purpose. Having gone through many very difficult situations in the last twenty some years, I constantly felt that something good should come of the experiences I had been through. I was determined to act in a big way to honor God for bringing me through the valleys still at least a partially sane woman!  I say partially because I know some of you just would by that I was totally sane!  But that’s ok, ‘cuz everyone needs to be a little crazy sometimes.  Anyway……

The more I searched the more I became frustrated because it seemed I just didn’t have all that much to offer.  I had always heard and believed that God gave everyone special gifts and you should strive to use that gift for the Lord. My gift seemed to be just surviving one day to the next in what for many years has been a pretty difficult and all too often heart breaking world.

I could look all around me at people with such wonderful gifts, and I both admired them, and to be perfectly honest was a bit jealous of. (Not a good trait, that green monster, but I said I’m being honest here!)  I tried a lot of things, but my heart was never in it for long, if at all and it just seemed that I couldn’t find that “gift” that I would give to the world that would honor my God.

What I finally realized was that I was so busy looking for that “gift” that I was ignoring what God was all along telling me to do, because what he was telling me just didn’t seem all that important.  What I learned was I wasn’t trying as hard to bring honor to God as I was trying to validate myself with this unknown talent that would rock the world.

I’ll try now to bring this to a quicker point. When I learned to stop trying to discern which one “gift” was more outstanding than the other and to stop trying to figure out what I wanted to do, it was then that I asked God what HE wanted me to do.

It didn’t take long before before I had a very definite answer. I’ve always enjoyed playing around with graphics and I’m pretty good at it if I do say so myself, and glory be, wouldn’t you know it was a gift from God and he wanted to use it!  A card ministry! (another term I’ve been told that doesn’t apply to what I am doing, but I’ll get into that maybe tomorrow!)

So back to the original statement. It’s correct stating that ” a little card can’t save a soul”  and it probably doesn’t rate in that list of  ‘outstanding talents” I was busy looking at.  BUT it is what God asked of me.  He didn’t ask me to preach, and I would fall flat on my face if I tried. He didn’t ask me to sing and nobody wants me too I assure you!  He asked me to be responsible for giving out little cards, he didn’t ask me to be responsible for the results.

So until or if God decides he wants me to do something else, I’ll be giving out little cards and I couldn’t be happier about it!  I am grateful that God found a way to use me and if nothing else it is clear proof that if he can use me, he can use ANYONE!

I can’t save even one soul with a card, but it can crack open a door enough to let God in to do mighty miracles!

Dealing With Worry

Worry Ends Where Faith in God Begins.

To tell someone “do not worry” is very often easier said than done. We’ve all said it and probably all heard it, but the fact is that if you are a child of God then worry should never for any reason be a part of your make up.

The bible teaches that we are to have complete, total trust in God for everything. EVERYTHING! Not just the little stuff. The big stuff too!

We’ve all heard someone say and likely said it ourselves, when told not to worry. “well I do trust God but this is different. This is my child, he is sick, or on the wrong path in life. Or maybe it is a finacial worry.. Whatever it is our first thought would be to say, it is just natural to worry about it.

That’s true. It is “natural” to worry about the problems that tend to take over our lives. But we as christians are NOT natural people! We are supernatural! We do not live as those of the world. Jesus said “You are not of the world even as I am not of the world.” While we live in this world, we are through Christ spiritually above it! What would seem natural to the world, is or should not be natural to we as Christians.

So while Worry may be natural to most, to us, the children of God it should not even be a considered emotion!! God is a very big and powerful God and he can handle ANYTHING you can throw at him! He knows you, really knows you, and the trouble you are in, or the worry you have is no surprise to him. He knows all about it and has a great plan for your life. All you need to do is go to him with it!

I am so grateful to serve such a powerful and big God. When worrysome things happen, lets just look at it, smile and think, it’s sure gonna be fun to see how God handles this one!!!

Where are our Values

Today, standing in a checkout line at the store, mentally running through my list of things I couldn’t forget before finally heading home for the day, my attention was turned to a disturbing conversation.
Two young ladies were discussing a new movie they had just seen. It was great one exclaimed, followed with warnings that there was a lot of cussing in it, and some nudity, but nothing serious.
Well it already sounded serious to me, as the movie in review here was a movie that targeted children as far as I knew. I will admit to having no idea about the movie but the title Transformers seemed to me to be a kids type movie. As most of us do I suppose when hearing bits of conversation, I tried to continue my mental list of what I needed to be doing next and ignore the conversation, as it was not directed to me anyway.
A lady behind me was a bit more interested in the conversation as she was on her way with her two young children to see the movie, and apparently having only caught part of the conversation asked, “Oh was it good? Were going to see it now.” When she didn’t get an answer, I figured a woman with young children would want to know, and quietly repeated what the girl had said earlier, “She said it had a lot of cussing and some nudity in it.”
From there the two discussed the movie, detailing exactly what words were used, thankfully using only the first letter of the words, the a-word, the s-word ect. Justifying it by adding that the “no really bad words.” That seemed to be OK by the mother of the two small children on the way to see the movie.
Then we went on to discuss the nudity, exactly what parts were shown and how much sex, and what exactly could be seen. That too was ok, as it didn’t really show everything and just a few naked parts and some insinuated sex acts would be ok. My thought at this point was, well I guess anything short of porn would be ok!
I checked out, left the store shaking my head and thinking that I wouldn’t want my kids to come home from the movies repeating even the minor curse words if there is such a thing, but they weren’t asking me and it was none of my business.
As I thought on it later, I thought maybe that was not exactly true. It is our business. We are raising a generation of kids that are being well trained in the art of compromise and acceptance. There is a very blurred line between right and wrong. Bad language and nudity in movies is so very prevalent that we, over time just came to accept a certain amount of it. We are and have been for years being slowly brainwashed into compromising our values for the sake of what “everyone is doing”
Is it any wonder that our lawmakers have compromised our values to such a degree that America is hardly recognizable anymore? They have been trained since birth that it is better to comprise than to draw a definite line between right and wrong.
We put labels on it like, acceptance, tolerance, democracy, equality, when it is nothing more than not having the spine to stand up for what is right or wrong no matter what anyone thinks.
It is time to stand up and say clearly that a “little bit of wrong” is still very wrong. There’s no
“acceptable bad” and “really bad” It’s wrong or it’s right!
Unsure of what’s right and wrong? Remember the WWJD bracelets? I see them everywhere. Perhaps it is time to start asking that question and acting on the answer!
What would Jesus Do?