Showing posts with label travels. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travels. Show all posts

Monday, October 28, 2013

One hundred "Yes"ses

"How did you get to this point?" someone asked us last week. "How can you leave everything behind to live on the other side of the world?"

"Just say yes." It doesn't much thinking to come up with an answer. "A hundred small 'yes'ses make a big 'YES' possible." When our habit is following Jesus, it feels natural for our feet to turn to his ways.

Do we struggle? Question? Doubt? Struggle? Wonder?

Even sometimes, offer objections?

Of course.

But each small 'yes', repeated over and over as we grow in faith, opens our hearts to consider things we would have thought were impossible. We learn to trust that the One - who delights us with small and ordinary opportunities - has prepared us for extraordinary paths.

Where are your spiritual feet taking you today? (What is your "YES!" to Jesus?)

Our yes is here: http://gokowalskis.com. Please join us by praying and giving.

Read more: 
*If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding  gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others. It is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a (wo)man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. 1 Corinthians 13 NIV

(CS Lewis) Though Christian charity sounds a very cold thing to people whose heads are full of sentimentality, and though it is quite distinct from affection, yet it leads to affection. The difference between a Christian and a worldly man is not that the worldly man has only affections or ‘likings’ and the Christian has only ‘charity’. The worldly man treats certain people kindly because he ‘likes’ them: the Christian, trying to treat every one kindly, finds himself liking more and more people as he goes on—including people he could not even have imagined him- self liking at the beginning.

This same spiritual law works terribly in the opposite direction. The Germans, perhaps, at first ill-treated the Jews because they hated them: afterwards they hated them much more because they had ill-treated them. The more cruel you are, the more you will hate; and the more you hate, the more cruel you will become — and so on in a vicious circle for ever.
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible. 

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Heigh ho and off we go! Again.

Montana summer
I have two more nights at home this summer. If all goes as planned. (When do things ever go as planned?)

Tonight is one of those two nights. I hop a plane tomorrow to celebrate a special anniversary. I was one of two flower girls a half-century ago; the surprise party should be fun! (IF you know who I'm talking about, please keep it a surprise.) Mom said I played "Jesus Loves Me" at the ripe age of 6 ... and forgot to take off my lacy white gloves. No matter. I found a pair of white gloves today and will take them along, whether I have a chance to play for the couple or not.

Dreaming of summer
I'm almost two months behind on my first plans of summer respite. The first month after grad we toured the Holy Lands (Israel and Jordan) with a study group. Sunshine! immersion, truly a gift from God. This month, I began to sort and declutter the dissertation debris, whip the house and yard into a semblance of order, and get caught up with some of our friends. I even found time to watch a few Korean dramas.

W headed for our cabin in MT last week, working on trim, grouting a bathroom, and otherwise finishing out the building that has been his labor of love for 15 years. I'll join him in MT next week, leaving our adult kids to spread through the house on their own.

"Mom, we miss you guys, but honestly? It's nice to have the house to ourselves," go the young-adult-reviews about our extended absences. Meanwhile, W and I are happy to have caretakers and chore-doers! Jonathan ramps up his skills as a chef and baker when we're away, too. We love to see pictures of his friends sitting around the kitchen table, eating his creations.

Happy Birthday, Marilyn!
The sun shone on the dogs and me as we did our hour-walk this morning. After a visit to the doctor with Melissa, we celebrated her mom's birthday with takeout from a Chinese restaurant. Then it was time to check email and pack for the weekend as well as the summer. Except...

1000 hurrahs! The PDF of my dissertation popped into my inbox this afternoon, thanks to the hard work of copy editors Annette Newberry and Tresa Edmonds at the seminary. Between everything else, I've spent the afternoon and evening printing out the dissertation. On the way to the airport in the morning, we'll drop the copies off at the Post Office, my last obligation of the degree. The seminary will bind the copies. I'm giddy with the thought of NO MORE DISSERTATION. EVER.   EVER.     EVER!

That said, my posts may be more sporadic as I dive into summer writing projects. But if you don't hear from me, remember that you can write to me! Find me on FB or post a comment on the blog once in a while.

Happy Summer, everyone.

Read more:
*The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Psalm 23:1

*Thus says the Lord, “I will rejoice in doing good to them.” Jeremiah 32:41

*For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. John 3:16

*Christ says, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:10-11

Moravian Prayer: God of abundance, we hear your familiar voice and draw near to you, the one who leads us through verdant vales of vitality. May the still waters of your presence comfort our anxious spirits.

Just as the Lord rejoices in doing good for us, so may we rejoice in our great-hearted Redeemer through all we do. Let us testify to the entire world—“God is love!” In the name of Jesus. Amen.