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Clearing It Up

“Here I am! Rock me like a hurricane!”

Do you have ANY idea how many times I heard my husband sing this one line from that song on Saturday?? I stopped counting at some point. I’m surprised Em didn’t start saying it!  We did get rocked, quite a bit actually by some significant winds in the 50-60 mph range. We saw LOTS and LOTS of rain. I still don’t know the rainfall total but it pretty much rained non-stop from 4pm Friday until at least 10pm Saturday (I went to sleep after that and it had stopped by this morning).  We had a good 12 stuffy hours of no power. I grew up in the mountains. Not having power is common, especially during winter storms.  But the summer has something the winter doesn’t… heat!  The wind was so rough, if we opened a window, an entire room got wet, so we had to keep them closed. I walked out on our little porch several times just to feel like I wasn’t “smothering”.

Needless to say, as soon as the sun was up good this morning, I was begging Robbie to get me out of the house.  We took an adventure around downed trees to his parents where we had an unexpected but absolutely wonderful waffle and bacon breakfast! (That’s what you get when you wake up Grandma and Grandpa at 7:30 and let them know you have the grandchild with you in the driveway!)  Em has been really sweet for the most part the last couple of days. Today she got to playing a little rough/silly and had several bumps and bruises, but she’ll make it!

As I typed the title to this blog, I noticed the first line of that song was “Here I am!”  It makes me think of 2 things… Samuel (I think) in the old testament. When he was first getting the Lord’s call on his life. He heard God calling to his name and he said, “Here I am!”… The second thing is a song based on some verses in Isaiah, “Here I am, Lord send me. Here I am, Lord I’ll go.”  In looking at all the storm damage in person today, on the news and knowing there is a lot of damage in the Black Jack community, I really would have liked to have gone down there and helped personally.  That’s a challenge I’m feeling a lot lately. How do I serve God (physically) while still being faithful to my family?  I can’t exactly leave my 18 month old on top of Robbie all day to do physical labor. I shouldn’t go do that type of physical labor being pregnant and all.  I wouldn’t feel right asking Robbie to go do it all without me if he wasn’t called to do it.  It sometimes feels helpless to say, “All I can do is pray.” But at the same time, sometimes that’s the greatest thing we can do.  I guess I’ll figure it out as I go along.

Here are some videos of our booger today:

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Happy Mother’s Day!!

It makes my heart sing every time I hear Emme say, “Mom-mom”.  It’s so sweet, even when it’s “MOM-MOM-MOM-MOM” when she wants out of the crib after her nap. This weekend has been almost  as surreal as the week we had her and brought her home. Just pleasant and wonderful, even when Robbie gave her sips of Pepsi and she was out and out crazy for hours!  Saturday, she wanted to be held a lot. She came to me in the recliner and I picked her up. I was secretly trying to get her to nap.  My hair was in a pony tail, but she put her hand on my neck like she wanted to twirl my hair. I obliged and let her play, when she took my hair and brushed the ends over my nose to tickle me!  She is so darn funny and smart because that is what I normally do to her! She giggled and giggled!!  She touched my face.   I cried (of course).  Oh, how I love this beautiful child who has made me a “Mama”.

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Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord, oh my soul!

hey everyone!! hope you had a blessed and wonderful Easter with your family and friends. “Up from the grave He arose! with a mighty triumph o’er his foes; he arose a victor from the dark domain, and He lives forever with his saints to reign. He arose! He arose! Hallelujah! Christ Arose!” We have had a great day. Em was a bit fussy this morning, mostly because she was being persistent (in a not so good way where she wanted to pull the computer cord and mommy said “No” 3,000,000 times and had to ask for help from daddy!). Nonetheless, she was all gussied up in her beautiful new dress from Grandma Kim when we left for church.

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persistence, persistence

For a while now, we’ve been watching Emme try to walk. At first, you could put her feet on the ground and show her how to stand there holding your fingers… then in the past month, she would walk around holding your fingers… then pushing her toys everywhere… then reaching from person to person or other objects to get to her destination. She can be pretty persistent when she wants to go somewhere, trying to get your fingers. She will even turn around and hunt for your hands if you try to hide one!

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Your great name

One of my recent posts referenced names of God following the “Jehovah-” line. This theme of “names” keeps coming up for me, which typically means God is wanting me to look at something deeper.  First it was the sermon that got me started. Then, a song by Natalie Grant, that I absolutely LOVE titled, “Your Great Name” (click to see/hear a version w/lyrics). Today, I’m back on the name theme, but for slightly different reasons.

I was supposed to teach Sunday school for our class this week and the text was from John 14 and 15.I really hate that Rob and Em are sick and I can’t actually teach! In these passages, we find John 14:12-14 “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.”

I sure have been doing a lot of praying lately. Apparently growing up, becoming a parent, having friends who are getting married and becoming parents, plus having a career and husband can be cause to pray, imagine that!  Being from the South, a lot of people claim to be Christians. They are serious about their faith and, typically, their denomination. Denominations (I believe) are one of the biggest obstacles to reaching people with the message of Christ. (But that’s another story for another day.)  However, no matter what denomination, there seem to be some people in every single one who believe you have to pray “in Jesus’ name”.  When I first heard this, as an adult who had been a Christian for years, I thought, “For real? I’m praying, to God, therefore am I not praying to Jesus?”  But, these people were very serious about it. They said that “it couldn’t hurt” and some said, “If you don’t pray in His name it won’t be heard as well by God.”  No joke. These are real statements from real people. Of course, no one could tell me where they got the scriptural basis. I had to go hunting.

The best I can tell, the scriptures above from John 14 are where this comes from. So, when I came across these scriptures again studying for the lesson, I decided to read the study notes in my NIV study Bible.  I found this note interesting (on v. 13): “Not simply prayer that mentions Jesus’ name but prayer in accordance with all that the person who bears the name is. It is prayer aimed at carrying forward the work Jesus did–prayer that He himself will answer.”

Following this line of thought, I don’t think we should end every prayer with “In Jesus’ name, Amen” or start every prayer with “Dear Lord Jesus”.  Even following the Lord’s prayer (see Matthew 6), there is no mention of having to direct every prayer to Jesus specifically and the Lord’s Prayer is the example Jesus gave us on how to pray! But, following this line of thought, I can see where there are many times where praying in Jesus’ name could be powerful—when praying for the lost, marriages on the rocks, health and healing, deliverance.  But, I don’t think I would pray in Jesus’ name to have an efficient day at work or for job opportunities, or for an item to still be on sale, etc. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t even pray for the latter things.

Oh, and along these lines, one of the study questions on the side of the leader’s book for this day’s lesson said, “Have you ever prayed to the Holy Spirit?” …. interesting… Have I? Would I? What circumstances might prompt such a prayer?… Thoughts for another day!!!

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts about anything above. I, like you, am a work in progress and love to hear new perspectives!

Natalie Grant (Your Great Name):

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