Journey · the beautiful fight: kingly purses

I used to measure our “wealth” based on the numbers I saw in our bank account. I measure very differently today. I am writing this on the eve of the anniversary of the biggest explosion of generosity and true wealth into my life — and it had almost nothing to do with money.

My husband and I received some unexpected and devastating news that radically shifted our lives, and redefined everything we thought important or valuable. We suddenly had to learn to refocus our eyes and hearts in order to see what remained when it felt like so much was being taken.

Looking back, I can clearly see now, that while God was removing he was also rebuilding. By placing us on the receiving end of people’s abundant generosity and kindness, he revealed to us the priceless value of our faith and community as well as his definition of true riches.

Through our experience, God entrusted us with other people’s stories, friendships and resources. We know we were not the only ones dealing with difficult circumstances during this past year. We humbly acknowledge that the benefits we reaped were purely thanks to people giving generously to us, both through and in spite of their own personal and financial struggles. As a result we remain beyond grateful.

Speaking from experience, it is easy to get caught in the mindset of “it’s not my problem” or “I don’t know what to do” or “my efforts really won’t make that big of a difference.” However, as a recent beneficiary of so many people’s generosity even when it was both financially and emotionally costly, I’m here to tell you it does make a difference — even the small things. While some people know our faces and our story, many do not. However, I know for certain that there are scores more like us out there — hurting, broken, sad, alone and afraid. There are many people with stories like ours, people with broken hearts searching for healing...people desperate for good news in the middle of their storms. I know we are not the only ones.

God entrusts us with our stories and reminds us that not only is all not lost, but by giving, serving and loving beyond what feels safe, we can be a part of how God shows up in the life of someone needing to be found. Our God specializes in ministering to the hurting and brokenhearted through the lives and hearts of his people. While he is fully capable of healing and working miracles on his own, he chooses to involve us in his work and the story he is telling. He longs for us to experience the risk of giving — of ourselves, our time, our talents and our treasure — more than we think is possible. He wants to give us the reward of receiving more than we believe we could ever possibly deserve. He is the giver of true riches, which are often radically different than what we see in our bank accounts, and of much greater value. He promises to bless us, only we must simply give in order to receive.

	“The real measure of our wealth is how much we should be worth if we lost our money.”
	~ J. H. Jowett

§ If you are interested:  click here for The Journey in Word format and click here for the Journey in PDF format. For more resources, feel free to visit the Journey Devotional page by clicking here.

Journey · Is Jesus the Only Life?

 
I know her…that woman in the bible in Mark 5:21-34. Although we did not live during the same era, suffer the same affliction, share a meal or even a conversation, I easily recognize myself in her struggle for life-giving restoration and her all-out effort to receive this blessing from Christ. While her story shows how her faithfulness healed her broken body, mine is a story of how my struggle to cling to my faith has restored my broken and dying heart to life.

I am only recently beginning to emerge from some of the darkest days of my own history. Days where I felt hopeless and lost; forgotten by God; desperate to believe that He had more planned for me than just suffering. Although I believed that someday things had to eventually improve, for so long it only felt as if things were getting worse; I felt as if there was no life in my life.

I know what it feels like to be desperate for rescue, desperate for hope, desperate for life. Like the woman in the Bible, I too know what it feels like to throw myself toward Christ when all feels lost in a desperate all-or-nothing effort to be restored by the healer. He is the only one who can restore life where there was once death, isolation, ashes, hopelessness and grief. I know this from experience. Although I’m not fully healed yet, I’m on my way.

After all I have been through I still believe in miracles, despite the fact I did not see displayed the one for which I desperately prayed. The absence of this miracle brought forth agonizing heartbreak. After a time, I began to recognize and understand that throughout all of my struggles, I had been gifted with a new life. I developed a deeper perspective, a greater value for my blessings and new eyes to see all of the miracles that did take place surrounding my situation.

It has been a long, slow, and often painful journey. I am still in the process of moving forward day by day. However, I recognize within my heart a new whisper of hope that was not there before. This hope continues to deepen and as it grows, it is restoring my belief in possibility, in God’s promises over my life, and especially strengthening my faith and trust in God. Things in my life are far from perfect, but I now have hope where I once only had despair.

Jesus is the healer of my broken heart, the restorer of hope to my soul. He has returned the life to my breath and is developing streams in my once desert landscape of a heart. I’m here today on this side of my struggle to share that while trusting him with my heart and my hurts has not been easy, it has been absolutely life giving.

	“Go forth today, by the help of God's Spirit, vowing and declaring that in life----come poverty, come wealth, in death---come pain or come what may, you are and ever must be the Lord's. For this is written on your heart, 'We love Him because He first loved us.”
	~ Charles H. Spurgeon

§ If you are interested:  click here for The Journey in Word format and click here for the Journey in PDF format. For more resources, feel free to visit the Journey Devotional page by clicking here.

Jackson, Wyoming- At Last!

This post is so long overdue its not even funny.  About a month ago, we traveled to Jackson, Wyoming to visit my brother and his beautiful girlfriend.  They have lived there for three years, and this was our first trip up there to visit! It is a loonnnngggg drive (20+ hours each way) so we took our time and broke that down into two days of driving.  All I can say is if you have not been to that area of the country, it is a MUST VISIT!  Put it on your list! They live in a small town called Wilson, Wyoming which is located just outside of Jackson.  The town big town is called Jackson and Jackson Hole is the nearby ski mountain resort which is literally minutes away from Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park as well.

In my defense for the delay of this post, just before leaving, I purchased a new camera and well, I went a little crazy on our trip and took over 900+ photos! (I know!)

 So, over the past few weeks, I've been slowly going through them all in effort to weed out the obvious bad ones and to organize the ones I wanted to keep and post for the blog.  I also learned that taking 900+ photos is fun, but kind of a pain to go through when you get back!  So at long last, here are but a few of my favorites from our trip.  We were there for nearly a week and had the best time.

Here you go...

Here is where we stayed...in that white building on the left.  It is literally at the base of the Jackson Hole ski mountain (you can see some of the ski runs in the background) and right next to the tram (the big red Jackson Hole building).  Its located in Teton Village which is the community of hotels, restaurants, shops and 5 Star hotels.  It was a lot of fun to stay in the village.  Thanks D for hooking us up with such a great place to rest our heads!

This is my brother- He is a real live mountain man and I love him to pieces and miss him terribly! (However, every time I visit him in one of the cool places he's living, I am reminded why he probably won't be moving back to Kansas any time soon.)

This is his beloved dog, Luna.  She has lived 200 lives in her 9 years....

This is my amazing brother and his adorable girlfriend....

This is the house where they live...

This is where my brother works, and with so much wilderness around...needless to say, we learned a ton and were very well geared up for wildlife spotting and wilderness exploring...

gearing up...

...one of the first places we went...I wanted to see "the famous barn" that is in so many photos of this area. Oh, and the Tetons too.  :)

We hiked around Jenny Lake inside Grand Teton National Park one day and hiked to a place called Hidden Falls.

...the spot we stopped for a special picnic lunch...

...some of Luke's clouds were overhead while we ate...so beautiful...

...a little hammock that my brother set up when we were hiking back and decided to take a break...(it was the coolest thing and comfy too!)

M & D are a great together and they are also amazing chefs in the kitchen...they fed us very well!

One evening we made Asian food- we had spring rolls and homemade Pho (pronounced Pha) which is a soup. It was delicious!

One entire day we went to Yellowstone and did what is known as "the lower loop." It is about a 12 hour drive round trip- not because you are traveling a super long distance, but because you can only drive 45mph the entire time - and also because there are so many spectacular places to stop and get out to see.... (ps. an especially big thank you to my brother who took us on this trip despite the fact that he has to do it all the time for work! We LOVED getting to see it!)

...needless to say, we were not the only ones waiting for Old Faithful geyser to go off!

Old Faithful...so amazing...

...another geyser we stopped to see...

...a hot spring...

...some scoping at our picnic spot in Yellowstone... (notice M sitting up there next to the river watching for wildlife too...everyone was spotting wildlife...mine were just easier to see...)

 

Part of the lower loop in Yellowstone contains a place called The Canyon which is amazing and so, so beautiful. 

It contains this famous and gigantic waterfall...

We spent some time there just soaking it all in...

Then moved onto this valley where we watched some wildlife prancing around and killing things...

More Luke clouds overhead in Yellowstone...

...we saw quite a few bison in Yellowstone...they are HUGE...I included this shot so you could get perspective of one next to a Dodge pickup truck...did I mention that they are HUGE?

...another glimpse...

...a waterfall just inside the park where we stopped on our way back to Jackson...

...another look...

One whole morning we hiked to this place called Ule Hill in Grand Teton National Park.  It is well known as a place to observe wolves in their natural habitat.  We were lucky in that we had the whole place to ourselves the entire time we were there, but we were unlucky in that we did not see any wolves.  But we did see plenty of wildlife doing their thing...it was a fun morning...

...I know!  Look at those Tetons in the background!

We saw some moose while we were there too...

...and these guys... (really gals)

We introduced M&D to a Swiss yard game called Kubb (pronounced Koob). It is a lot of fun to play and needless to say, the students became the teachers.  I think we won only one game of the 20 that we played....but we had a lot of fun but I'm pretty sure most of those games were close ones!

...the battle zone...

D in action...

 

... in action...

...the girl is a ringer!

...I'm pretty certain he's about to win the game with this one...

...some of the days we were there were cold and chilly with a little bit of rain, so we played some indoor games as well....

...Remember when I said they fed us well? These are some homemade fries we had one night...

...the griller checking his fish...

...the feast!  Salmon and halibut caught by my brother and the fries (we also had salad too)- (please excuse the hideous cropping. That was the photographer's fault... but trust me, the whole scene was a beautiful sight!)

Remember I said was rainy some of the days we were there? Well, that was down in the valley were we were, but up on the peaks it was all snow! So one day we rode the tram (which on a busy day can hold close to 100 people!) up to the top of the ski mountain at Jackson Hole.  It was really fun and really cold at the top too!

At the top is this little warming hut place that makes waffles for the skiers and snowboarders during the winter.  It was open while we were there, so we went in.  We did not have waffles, but we (I) had a hot chocolate and the boys had some cold ones. It was really fun- and yes, that is fresh snow all around this building!

 

...along the outside of the waffle place...

In the wintertime, my brother does the daily snow report for the ski mountain.  All of that gear on the roof of the warming hut is what helps him to get his weather info every morning.  Pretty crazy!

...my delicious hot chocolate....first one of the season is always somehow the best!

...at the top...

....our last night in town...

...we took the scenic way out of town and these were some of our final views as we drove away....

...goodbye Tetons....we cannot wait to come back and visit!

To M & D, we cannot thank you enough for your hospitality, your incredible meals you provided and for all of the fun we had visiting you.  We look forward to seeing you again really soon! Love you lots!