A Praying Life

A couple of months ago we recieved a prayer journal and a copy of "A Praying Life" by Paul E. Miller from our home territorial headquarters. I decided that I would give myself the challenge of following the journal for 2o10 and reading the book.

This quote hit me from the book today:

If you are not praying, then you are quietly confident that time, money, and talent are all you need in life. You'll always be a little too tired, a little too busy. But if...you realize you can't do life on your own, then no matter how busy, no matter how tired you are, you will find the time to pray.

Just something to think about...

Lazy Summer Days

As the days get longer, and the temperature keeps rising, some congregation members have invited us over to swim and have dinner at their house. So far it's been a weekly thing for a month, and we've watched Bram get better and better at swimming!

Grandmas, enjoy!

No Such Thing

I don't believe in coincidences. I believe that God works all things together for the good of those who love him...even the little things. Even the things that one would initially think God is too busy to really deal with.

Example:

Saturday I arrived at the church to set up for our Spanish service. Only to find that the gate covering the door would not go up, which is the only way to get in the building. Needless to say, I prayed with the regular attenders before sending them home.

My husband and I, on Sunday morning, were able to manually shove the gate up enough to let people in for our English service. After the service we pressed the remote opener and the gate slammed shut. There was nothing more we could do about, being Sunday. So the boys and I spent the afternoon on the beach....suffering for Jesus.

Sorry, back to the story.....

Monday morning, Jeff and I once again shoved the gate up so we could open the thrift store for the day. We were decided to find a "repair" shop to give us an estimate about what needed to be done.

I had considered calling the Baptist church pastor and asking him if there was anyone in his congregation that fixed these gates that he could recommend to me. I wanted to find someone relatively trustworthy, because honestly I have never dealt with gates prior to being in Spain. I also had recently noticed some large signs pointing out various businesses as the "best businesses in Denia" and a repair shop had one of those signs just around the corner from our church building. So we decided to start there.

We walked in, explained our problem, and explained where the broken gate was located. The shop owner said "Oh, we're Christians too. We go to the Baptist church." Which led us into a conversation about how nice it would be for the evangelical community to do more things together, and she mentioned that just yesterday her church had prayed for the other churches in our city including The Salvation Army.

Her husband came the same evening and has completely sorted our gate issue out, even demonstrating to me what to do in the case of problems in the future. I am convinced that God led me there. That the shop was our intended destination.

We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

The Carrs take Toronto...

On Sunday, we visited Scarborough Citadel Salvation Army Church. The chapel was absolutely amazing! Their officer was in transition, and they had farewelled the officer last week, and would be welcoming the new officer this coming Sunday. My first thought was "why is there a week before the new guy arrives?? that would never happen at home!" Then someone explained that he was coming from Western Canada to Toronto, and it dawned on me that their territory is the size of our entire country, so a week's travel time was understandable. Anyways, it was a beautiful, traditional Salvation Army service.

We used the break to soak up some "Canadieness" (sp). We ate at Tim Horton's for breakfast (like Dunkin Donuts but EXTREMELY popular here), then Swiss Chalet for lunch, and a Boston Pizza for dinner. If you're from Canada I'm sure you recognize all those names, if not....sorry. We also drove about an hour and half to check out Niagra Falls, because who knows when we might ever be this close again. It was beautiful! We took lots of pictures and I even bought a Tshirt.

Monday we spent time talking about the process of change and transition and its effects on a family. As the speaker began to describe transition as feeling like crossing a busy hiway and no one giving any direction, I began to nod. Then as she continued describing transition as a chaotic time, with lots of irritability, a feeling of loss of purpose, and as just an all around terrible time, I began to cry. I had to leave the conference room to go cry in the bathroom for a minute, and regain my composure. As I read the paper and listened to her, I realized she was vocalizing what my family is going through!...it's called TRANSITION!!!! Now this may not be a new revelation to some people, but this was somewhat ground breaking to me. Theologically and ideally I understand this process, but to have someone give me the words and validate what is happening is freeing! That morning I couldn't really talk about it, but now I feel almost relieved that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Monday was like a huge spiritual breakthrough for me in the sense that God told me "No, you haven't made a mistake. This is normal. This too shall pass. But I have something to teach you as you walk through it with Me." Like the teacher said, it doesn't make sense to walk halfway through the busy street and sit down in the middle of the road, but it's in the middle where we will learn the valuable lessons of trust and blessing waiting on the other side.

Then today, we visited a mosque and listened to the Iman/Imam (sp?) talk about Islam and their beliefs. The women sat seperate from the men, we had been instructed not to ask the first question and to cover our limbs in respect to their beliefs. It was absolutely fascinating! I learned so much about Islam in general, and so much about my own faith in the process as well. I'm still processing through what the man spoke about today, so perhaps I will have more to say later about it. But it was such a great experience to step outside of our "comfort zone" and just come to a place to at least try to understand the "other side" so to speak.

The conference has been great and I really feel like we are learning a lot about ourselves in this process...