Where's Dorinda?

She's in KS. Enjoying her family. Shopping her small town stores. Praying for Mumbai. And driving the combine. And talking to Grandmother. And visiting Aunt Marie. And holding a new second-cousin-once-removed. And eating her mother's apple pie. And teaching Jacy about facebook. And taking naps. And talking to Dad late at night. And watching Susan and Mom take pictures with a mobile phone.

She did get up to have her time with God in the mornings. But she didn't work on her newsletters.

Stretching Week

Today had its own share of laughter and tears and praises. I had to ask for forgiveness multiple times today, but praise God for faithful brothers and sisters in Christ who love and forgive. That makes all the difference.

Honestly, it's been a stretching week for me. I made a decision that the students living with me weren't really excited about. Hey, I wasn't all that excited about it either. And today I kept thinking about it. But it's interesting. I had peace and still have peace about the decision. I'm just stressed over everything (anything) else.

At GFA Ladies' Meeting this evening, I mentioned fear as a ongoing challenge in my life. One of the ladies responded, "You know what to do with fear, right? Confession and forgiveness. Fear is a sin. It's not trusting God." Ouch. Truth. I was grateful.

You can pray for me to trust. :)

Winda, Winda

Why is it that I always have lots to post when I have no time and nothing to post when I do have time? Never mind.

KT and I had Grateful Friday last week - the School of Discipleship students all gathered at my house for a night of praise and thanksgiving. The specific focus was praising God for who He is. Neither KT nor I are creatively-inclined, so we were quite proud of ourselves for turning these kids' building blocks:

into this collage/puzzle thing:

We then cut the puzzle apart along the building block lines and passed out the pieces to the attendees as the arrived. Each person added their piece of the puzzle when they shared their praise/thanks.

Random story: One of our GFA kids, 3 year old Andrew, was crawling quietly along a row of chairs after prayer meeting last night when I reached over and gently rubbed his sides (not enough to tickle him, just enough to get his attention). He looked up at me and sighed and smiled as he said, "Winda, Winda."

I'm not sure any of you should try to call me that, but it sure was cute coming from him.

Crazy Day

Hmm... I had something profound to say. But I forgot it. Too bad. I guess I'll close this post and go figure out what the water-running sound is. It's not in my bathroom. And I thought the girls were in bed. Maybe one of them is washing their face. But the water has been running for quite a few minutes. And they shower in the morning. Hmm... EOP

Keep the focus - Part 2

This morning in prayer meeting, JD opened his devotional with two questions. What do you want your top three priorities to be? If you look at how you use your time on a weekly basis, does it match up with your priorities?

Hmm... thought I. Similar to what I was thinking about last night.

Keep the focus

It seems like the Lord has been reminding me lately to keep my focus - keep my eyes on the goal and watch out for distractions. 2 Timothy 4 has Paul giving his final charge to Timothy and mentioning his own life: I'm ready to go. I've finished the course. I've kept the faith. I was mentioning during Bible study that you can't finish a race without knowing where the finish line is. You can't effectively train toward a goal or say "I've reached that goal" without knowing what that goal is.

Pastor John talked this morning about Samson. He had a call on his life and tremendous potential, but his life was filled with distractions.

Hmm... next step: knowing what that goal is and identifying the distractions. I need to focus on the goal of knowing Him, but also on the call He's given me to serve at GFA.

Give me one pure and holy passion.
Give me one magnificent obsession.
Give me one glorious ambition for my life:
To know and follow hard after you.*
*Copyright: Watermark

Early morning cowbells

It's early morning. To me. And it would be to you too if you finally got to sleep about 5:30. I'm sure it's early morning to the hundreds of people walking past my house and the lady in pink out from of my house ringing cowbells, too. I saw signs of a planned fun run last night (this morning) as I came home and was curious. This morning's light revealed a "walk for the cure" routing right past my house--pink feather boas and large pink hats, pink kerchiefs and pink t-shirts and even the occasional pink beard. has set up her van outside my front door and cheers them on with sounds and music and cowbells. And the vehicles stream by, honking their support.

I did stop by the bank and post office this morning (dodging sidewalks full of walkers). And I got a wonderful care package in the mail from wonderful college roommate! So now I'm curled up here blogging, paying bills, and sipping apple cider. Thanks, college roommate!

End of Prayer

We got prayer meeting finished up, cleaned up, and now we're at home preparing to rest up. It was good to have a couple LeTourneau students come for prayer meeting - Grey, one of our summer interns and David, a guy I talked to at the LeTourneau career fair last week. Thanks, guys! (Laura, Benaiah, Ryan, and others - we missed you! Hope your papers and projects went well!)

Friday Update

It's been a stretching and busy week of sorts, but not overwhelming in the office area. The enemy was messing in some areas of my life, but he got discovered and vanquished with the sword. "Ha-Ha! So There!" He should learn not to mess with me. My God is bigger.

I'm a little wiped at the moment - just enough to put me in a weird mood. Getting ready to take a nap before all-night prayer. Short sentences work well. And can be funny. But not all of them.

Grateful Friday List:

• All the songs we're singing tonight were already in the song database
• Ben and Preston are running computers tonight
• Praise God I get to sing songs tonight
• Praise God for a roommate who faithfully challenges me to get up in the mornings.
• Praise God for his strength for me and my roommates during this very stretching week.
• Praise God for his work in human hearts - giving us love for people supernaturally (and helping people love us supernaturally).
• The new login request we got today is due on Tuesday, not Monday.
• Coffee with KT last Monday. We routed the enemy together.
• UF tomorrow!
  

Ready for Monday (Random weekend notes)

I was blessed by Pastor John's message this Sunday morning. I was trying to explain it to someone and said, "It felt like Pastor John was sharing from the Bible instead of sharing from his stories and thoughts." It was probably also connected to the fact that Pastor was teaching on Joshua and God has really used that book in my life this year.

I attended a baby shower this afternoon and we had a tea party at our house this evening. And I managed to fit a nap in too! We have two full-time volunteers starting tomorrow morning at the office, so I'm heading to bed so I can get up and have things ready for them.

Praise God for friends, fellowship, and an extra hour of sleep!