Teenagers, Mud, and Worship!

My daughter, Val and I recently took three teenagers to the Alive christian Music Festival. What an awesome week! It rained everyday and everything turned to mud. But God is so good! It stopped raining long enough for the bands to perform, and perform they did! The Newsboys put on an amazing show and David Crowder had all the people up and on their feet singing praises to God as loud as they could. All the bands were great. All the speakers were great. Many people got saved! And I believe God was smiling down on us.

This is Derrick and Tre in their little tent. We banned them from the camper. Its girls only!
This is Derrick and Lexi. Two of the teenagers hanging with us at Alive. They are practicing for the "Alive's Got Talent" auditions. They didn't win but they gave it their all. I was very proud of them!
Valerie's muddy feet. They look pretty good on this day.

Praising under open skies, everything breathing praising God!

My cousin, my friend

When you were growing up, did you have a favorite cousin? Back in the day, families were close, not only emotionally but physically. I lived just down the street from my cousins. We were inseparable. Summers seemed to last forever, and on any given day you could find us playing at the grade school, building forts in the woods, walking the railroad tracks, or playing tin can alley when it grew dark. I would have to say that back then my best friend/cousin was Allison. We were together everyday. She was two years younger than I was, but that didn't matter to me and my twin. Allison was our best friend even if she was our cousin.
When I was about 12 or so another cousin moved into my little town. I didn't know Heidi very well. The only thing I knew about her was that she had lived all over the world and she spoke another language. I was so amazed by her.
I don't know when we became close friends/cousins. Looking back, I cannot pinpoint a particular time when we even started hanging out together. It just happened. Somewhere along the way Heidi and I became best friends. Somewhere along the way I also found out that she was a Navy brat and she really didn't live all over the world nor did she speak another language. But that didn't matter, I was still amazed by her. After all, I had never been away from my little town, and she came all the way from a far off land called Connecticut.
I remember the funny things we used to do, hanging out at her house. By the way, her house was the coolest house to hang out in..she had a pool in her house that we could swim in during the winter months..how cool is that? She had a spiral staircase and a sunken bathtub. And she had very cool parents. These are things you just didn't see in this little town I grew up in during the 70's. Anyways, we spent many nights calling up the local radio station requesting our favorite songs, trying to get a tan on her balcony (yea, she even had a balcony)! Oh did I mention we tried to get a head start on our tans by laying out in the middle of February in Ohio! We celebrated my 16th birthday at her house with my twin and another cousin, Sheryl. But before we could do that we had to do a "Chinese fire drill" at the the traffic light in our little town. Sadly to say that there are only two traffic lights in our town and there were no other cars at this particular light. But we still performed the drill and ran around the car like yoo-hoos, but it was fun, we thought we were rebels! After turning 16, we spent our Friday nights cruising the boulevard, eating at Burger King and then heading off to Parrel to the skating rink.
That was thirty years ago. I recently spent some time with my cousin, Heidi. She's no longer a navy brat, but an Army wife. She hasn't lived in Mayberry for many many years but now calls Alaska home. Friends may come and go in your lifetime, but there's something special when your best friend is also your cousin. No matter how long we are away from each other, when we do see each other we always just pick up where we last left off.
So if its been awhile since you talked to that favorite childhood relative, maybe you should get a hold of them and pick up where you last left off.

When I Die

Three or four days a week, I meet with a friend to work out. Monday morning we were working out and catching each other up on how we spent our weekend when she told me that her friend had passed away over the weekend. The man who died was about three years older than me and had went to the same high school that I had went to. There were a few other ladies exercising with us and joining in on the conversation. The talk was mostly about the widow and how she would handle the loss of her husband. They talked about how young she is and in good shape, that she would probably find another person to love and love her back, and I guess they are probably right but all I could think about was, "was Jack a christian? Did he believe Jesus to be his savior? Had he ever asked God to forgive him?", where is he now and where will he be for the rest of eternity. For several days now that is all I can think about. I started thinking back at some of the people that I have lost, both of my grandparents, a couple Uncles-in-law. Were they Christians? Did they have a personal relationship with Jesus? I read a book about a year ago titled, "23 minutes in Hell" by Bill Wiese. In his book, he describes how God had showed him hell. His story is terrifying. I can't imagine my grandparents suffering the way his book describes suffering or my husband's late uncles who were just the sweetest men on this earth. I sit and think to myself, that I should have mentioned Jesus to my relatives at least once. I should have asked them what they believed in. But I didn't and now its too late. I will never know. Why is it easier to witness to total strangers than it is to witness to family members? So I have decided that everyone who is close to me should know where I stand. So that when I die, (yep its gonna happen to me too some day),no one will have to wonder where I am or where I am spending eternity. Here's my testimony to any one who cares: I have always believed in a loving God. For as long as I can remember . Its what I was taught. I always went to Sunday School. I was in the choir. I was a good girl who tried to always please every one. but I found out that didn't mean anything.
The summer between seventh and eighth grade I attended church camp. First time ever. I loved it. It was sports camp and we held our own Olympics. I was very nervous as it was the first time my twin did not accompany me. One night at camp we had a speaker tell us how Jesus loved us so much that He died for each one of us, He paid the price for our sins. He also said that you can go to church every day for the rest of your life, you can give all your money to the church, you can be nice, and you can be a people pleaser but its not going to get you into Heaven. You must have a personal relationship with Jesus. You must ask Him to forgive you and you must become obedient to Him. He told us it was not enough to just believe in Him, even Satan and his demons believe in Him. I had to turn my life over to Him and that's what I did that hot summer night. I gave my life to Jesus. I went home a new person. I was a new creation. Life couldn't have been better. Fast forward 9 years, I just gave birth to my daughter. I was overwhelmed with the miracle of life. This beautiful baby was mine. I just couldn't believe God would bless me and my husband with such a beautiful child. I decided to be obedient and get baptized. Well, I had already been baptized in my church when I was about 12 because its what was expected of me but I didn't really understand it. The preacher dropped a few drops of water on my head and then on the head of my twin and that was that. Now I felt so blessed that I really wanted to be baptized and three months later I was baptized, fully immersed, in a pool down the road. I went on with my life, married to my best friend, mother of a daughter then blessed with a son. I got so busy going to PTA meetings, ball games, swimming and judo lessons, that I put Jesus on the back burner so to speak. Oh I still believed in Him, I still said a five minute prayer every night before going to bed. But my devotion went to my family first. I no longer had time to really study God's word, or to spend a lot of time talking to God. Until...until a storm blew in and made my world go dark. My husband couldn't help me and my kids couldn't help me. I knew I had to turn my life back over to Jesus. He would take away my pain. I needed to trust Him again. So one night a couple of years ago, during revival at my church, I knelt at the altar and gave my life back to Jesus. Now (just like the song) I will move ahead bold and confident, taking every step in obedience. So for anyone who might wonder where I will spend eternity...no need to worry..my hope is in Jesus!