Family

A Well Watered Garden

San Antonio Trip

San Antonio

Here we are in beautiful downtown San Antonio! Susan Phillips and I drove down Tuesday and arrived around 4:00. We're staying at the historic Menger

Hotel. Tuesday evening we took a walk around the riverwalk and ate dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe including margaritas. The riverwalk is beautiful and has lots of shops and restaurants. Even though I miss San Antonio I'm still proud of OKC and what they're trying to build in our city.

Later that evening we came back hot and sweaty and went to the pool to cool off.

Yesterday we met my longtime friend Karen Sheldon for lunch at the Alamo Cafe. This was one of our family's favorite restaurants when we lived here. It was a wonderful visit. I hadn't seen Karen in quite a few years but it also seemed like we were never apart. I'm very thankful for our friendship.

After lunch we went shopping in Fredricksburg TX. It's like Guthrie on steroids. Lots of small shops with antiques, furnishings, decor and even a 5 and 10 with all the junk we need but don't need. We shopped until the stores started to close down and then ate dinner at an Italian restaurant called Pasta Bella. I had fettuccine Alfredo with chicken which was delicious. Then we headed back to the hotel. Susan and I had a fabulous time.

Today I'm having lunch with Leslie Laro and Penny Smith at El Chaparral in Helotes. I taught with both of them back in the day and saw them a couple of years ago at Leslie's wedding. It will be great to see them again. Susan is opting to stay here and explore the riverwalk and find the Rivercenter Mall. I'll meet up with her later and perhaps go to the IMAX to see the movie The Alamo and then to the real Alamo and dinner at the Mercado... Whatever our hearts desire. Tomorrow it's back to OKC via San Marcos Outlet Mall woo hoo! :)

Encouragement

This morning I was praying about the healing seminar we're hosting at church and thinking about my own journey with praying for healing. I've been praying for my friend Liz's dad Jerry since he went into surgery for a brain tumor before Thanksgiving. He's had bad days and good days but is still in the hospital. I've laid hands on people and prayed for healing numerous times but have not seen miracles like I want to. I was getting discouraged that maybe I'm not praying right or that maybe my prayers won't get answered the way I want them to. The Lord gave me 1 Thessalonians 3:1-6 which talks about being encouraged in the faith and then he said to turn to pg. 147 in Bill Johnson's Strengthen Yourself in the Lord.

"God has already pursued us with a love so totally overwhelming that it will take all of eternity to plumb its depths. But He protects the opportunities that we have to use our will to pursue Him. That's how faith works. If He says He will catch us, we jump because only when we jump, can He do what he promised. Only as we step out to do the supernatural things He has asked of us can we appropriate the supernatural power He's already given us to achieve these impossible tasks. "

I went to work this morning rejoicing in the Lord who gives me strength. I also prayed again for Jerry and prayed for my friend Kristen's mom who underwent surgery for cancer. I had previously prayed to guide the doctors hands and was praying that she would have a speedy recovery.

I talked to Kristen this morning regarding her mom's cancer surgery and she said. "This is God! My mom's surgeon said it was only stage 2 cancer, he was able to get it all and that it hadn't penetrated the muscle so the chances of it's recurrence was less likely. She also said that her mom had to have nail polished removed from a recent pedicure and manicure she had done because she couldn't have nail polish on while in surgery. During the removal she struck up a conversation with another woman who ended up being the nurse of a breast cancer surgeon/oncologist, only 2 in the nation, and she is now going to have her breast cancer taken care of by this surgeon. Kristen's mom called her today to tell her about it because she thought it was Saturday, not a workday, or she wouldn't have called until tomorrow.

God is so faithful. That even in the midst of my discouragement he encouraged me that he does answer my prayers and to keep on praying. I hope this encourages you and that you will pursue God with all your heart.

Discouragement/Praise

Coming into my office this morning after reading the paper I had a since of discouragement about the things I have to get done or just the idea that I can't seem to enjoy this morning or have victory over the things that are hard. I asked the Lord and he sent me to pg. 63 in Strengthen Yourself in the Lord by Bill Johnson. The title "The Personal Breakthrough Moment". He talks about praise being the killer of discouragement because even if you can't do everything right or feel like you're not on the right track you can't lose with praise. This means physical expression. Now I'm an outgoing person and I have no problem lifting my hands and praising the Lord in public but I know I don't do it in private much. However, if I want to cancel that cloud of oppression I have to praise. When I focus on my weaknesses and compare myself to others I'm actually agreeing with the enemy. God delights in us so He wants us to delight in him. He rejoices over us with singing (Zeph 3:17) 7 Your God is present among you, a strong Warrior there to save you. Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love and delight you with his songs. So he wants us to rejoice over him with singing. When we give to him what he gives to us, we step further into relationship with Him deepening our heart connection with the source of life. When we align our body, mind and spirit with what he has told us there is a release of his nature that flows to us in that place of intimacy. Romans 14:17 "God's kingdom isn't a matter of what you put in your stomach, for goodness' sake. It's what God does with your life as he sets it right, puts it together, and completes it with joy" (message) 17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, (NIV). Here God is telling us how to have joy. Not only to rejoice because we have joy but to rejoice in the pursuit of it. Rejoicing requires you to acknowledge that His goodness and faithfulness are more real than your present difficulty. It especially requires you to agree that your life is not really about you! Thanksgiving and praise are tools to strengthen ourselves not because they help us get something from the Lord, but because they reconnect us to our primary purpose--to minister to Him in worship. They bring us into His presence; and true worship is something that only happens in that place of communion with His presence. In worship, the sacrifice is no longer physical expression or verbal declarations. We are the sacrifice. Fire always falls on sacrifice. And when we are the sacrifice, we cannot help but be changed.
Thanks Bill for walking through this for me. Thank you God for the sacrifice of your son. May I become your sacrifice.