POWER!

Well, the power of the Holy Spirit is definitely at work.  The money is ROLLING in!  Praise the Lord.  I am not sure exactly where we are at, but, I think it's nearing $1500!!!  Keep it coming is all I've got to say!
A plane ticket and a hotel has been paid in full for a woman who has gotten out of the industry!  I really wanted to take her with me to the race so that she can see with her own eyes how amazing God is even through a small thing like a race.  I am stoked about taking her!
So, I listened to a podcast today (Yes, it was Francis Chan), about power.  His divine power has given us EVERYTHING we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. The POWER that raised Christ from the dead is in me and YOU!  WHAT?!!?  Really?  Yes, it's true.  I have had the pleasure of experiencing this.  What I have learned is that when you face something like an illness such as cancer, this gives you the opportunity to learn perseverance.  You persevere through the chemo, radiation, Dr's appointments, and fatigue.  Or let's talk about endurance.   How about the person who has gone though a LONG divorce.  Court dates, judges, lawyers, custody battles, and on and on the list goes.  An unwanted, but an amazing time to learn about enduring!  What about the person who has waited their entire to life to meet the "right one"?  and they are 37 and not even dating anyone?  Patience has become their companion.  I am not saying that you can't learn about these qualities and characteristics with absolutely no suffering in your life, I am just saying that you get an incomparable opportunity to sharpen and refine these tools when put through the fire.  You can say what I have had to say to myself many times, "HERE'S MY CHANCE!"  Here's my chance to persevere.  Here's my chance to endure.  Here's my chance to show some patience.  WOW, what an honor and privilege that God has entrusted me to this task.  Consider yourselves blessed, as James puts it.  We must rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope.  And hope NEVER disappoints us.  never. I love you all.  Good night!

AAA

Got a 7 miler in today.  Felt awesome!  God is helping me sooo much in strength and endurance through this whole process!  I pray everyday for supernatural strength to match the task He has set before me, and He is faithful ALL the time!  So, on my run today, I got a clearer picture of my calling to this thing called life. But, in all reality, it's really ALL our calling.  God used 3 words to make it simple for me and they all start with the letter A...

Simple truth for simple minds... here we go!

First off, we are called to be Christ's ambassadors!  Ephesians 6:20.  This term is described as a diplomatic official serving the HIGHEST rank!  Sent by one sovereign or state to another as it's representative.  If you wear the name Christ, you are an ambassador!  Which means you need to r-e-p-r-e-s-e-n-t!  Go to bat for Him.  Stand up for Him.  Make clear His message to others.  

Second, we are to be advocates for the unbeliever.  Listen, I know what it's like to be lied to. lied to in the most awful way.  I now have an understanding of how unbelievers feel about the church!  They have been lied to!  They have been told that they would be clothed, fed, taken care of, LOVED!  We have failed them!  We need to be an advocate in a way that says, "Hey, I am not going to tell you I love you and wish the best for you, I am going to SHOW you!"  

Thirdly, we are to be Army recruiters!  This one is for the believer!  We need to constantly remind one another that we are in battle whether we acknowledge it or not!  Look at your friend or spouse and say, "It's time to put your armor on, man!"  If we even think we can walk out of our bedroom in the morning without putting it on, we are in for a massacre... (some days are worse than others...)

So, in  my on-going running summary, God imparted the wisdom of being ambassadors, advocates, and army recruiters!  Go gettum team!  On 3... BREAK!  love you - T

It's time...

I recently felt like God was telling me to tell a fellow worker, "It's time."  I don't really know why, I just knew that he needed to hear that. So, I was obedient and told him.  Well, tonight at church, I felt like this was the theme.  It IS time...  It's time to let Jesus lead us.  I mean, if He hung on a tree for me, can't I stand up for Him?  If He has faith in me, can't I have faith in Him?  If He sacrifices for me, can't I sacrifice for Him?  Why are we all wasting soooo much time?  It's rediculous.  Our time on this earth is sooooo short.  Let's all just do the thing.  It's time to just start loving people the way they need to be loved.  No gimmicks, no tricks, Just love.  

Ok, so some updates on the refuge.  Ked Frank has officially taken on the full-time roll of being on staff with the non-profit organization, the Refuge For Women.  Everything is starting to fall into place.  We are still in need of some prayer for a women who feels led to be the housemom of the Refuge.  So, you all can pray for that!  I just recently had a person donate the money for a plane ticket for a refuge candidate to come to my race with me!!!  Praise God!  We will see where that goes!  I can't wait to watch God work as money starts to come in in response to the letters going out!  God is teaching me so much through this whole process and I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow morning when I wake up.  He just keeps surprising me.  I LOVE Him sooooo.  Have a great week.  T

More than conquerors!

I often like to refer to myself as Shera or Xenia (princess warrior)...  

Why?  Because the bible says this of me.  It says the same to you.  Read Romans 8.  Suffering does not separate us from Christ but actually carries us along toward our ultimate goal.  Suffering has ALWAYS been a part of God's people.  But, we know that God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.  If He is for us who can be against us?

We are warriors for Christ because we HAVE to be!!!  We HAVE to fight!  Why do you think He has had to equip us with Army gear? Belt (of truth), Breastplate (of righteousness), Shield (of faith), Helmet (of salvation), and the Sword (of the spirit).  We are to extinguish all flaming arrows that the evil one tries to throw at us.  So, whatever you have to refer to yourself as, so be it... mine just happens to be Xenia, princess warrior.  He makes us conquerors through His love for us.  So, with believing, this, we can be absolutely convinced that neither life nor death, neither angles or demons, neither the present not the future, nor any powers, neither height or depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus the Lord.  satan can throw all the arrows he wants, but it's NOT going to work!  My God is too mighty and I'm not about to lay down and give up!  

I run because it represents my drive to fight.  I love the future women residents of the Refuge because Christ first loved me.  I am pressing on towards the goal to win the prize and I'm not about to look down or behind and I'm not about to lay down.  I am shouting my battle cry... "HE  ISSSSSS   AAAAABBBLLLLLEEEEE!"  LOVE YOU ALL - your fellow warrior in Christ.  

Prepare the way

Hello!  I hope you all are well.  todays' thoughts are taken from Isaiah 35.  My last long run was on saturday morning.  IT WAS HORRIBLE.  It was hot.  i was sick.  and this is not a good combination.  But, I persevered.  I listened to a really cool song called Glory Revealed by Candi Pearson.  Such a great song.  Look it up if you get a chance.  Anyway,  it's full-on scripture, which I love!  I wish I had the talent to put scripture to song, but I will leave that one to the professionals!  The chorus says: "Every valley will be raised.  Every mountain be made low.  And our ground it will be level. And the rough places smooth.  And then we will see the glory of the Lord.  All eyes will see the glory of the Lord."  This is all talking about preparation.  We need to be making ourselves READY!  A friend of mine recently told me of his plan to "make himself ready"  for his future wife.  I thought this was so cool.  He is purifying himself by getting rid of the junk in his life that takes his focus off of Jesus.  He is preparing his body to be physically fit so that he is found pleasing to her.  He is getting rid of his debt to enter in to a debt-free marriage.  He is keeping his eye on the prize...  The interesting thing is that he doesn't even know her!!!  He has never seen her!!!  wow.  we all have a lesson to learn from this.  

    We have not physically seen Jesus, but we need to be making ourselves ready for that glorious wedding day.  We need to ready our hearts, minds, souls.  How do we do this, you ask?  By throwing off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles!  We need to replace the filth in our minds with God's truth.  We need to fill our hearts with God's love so that what comes out of our mouths is only a replica of Him.  We need to put into action what it is that He is calling us to do!  Just DO THE THANG, as one of my best friends puts it.  

Love you all.  Have a blessed day!

info

If any of you want to be on the email list that tells updates and stories about the Refuge or Bruised Reed email Jani Lewis.  jlewis@southlandchristian.org love you all!

He noticed me.

My whole adolescent life I dealt with wanting men to notice me.  I wasn't really a great flirt, but in my mind I had my own way of flirting...  I considered it a good day if I got a man to 'look' my way.  I just wanted to be noticed, to be set apart, to be different and the more I was able to catch a man's eye, the more I felt all those things.  Praise be to God that I don't get my fulfillment out of men anymore.  I mean, sometimes it will rear it's ugly head, but I know how to combat it now.  

It's taken me a good 33 years to realize that the one who is truly romancing me, notices me.  Boy, does He ever.  He notices not only the Big, Huge things, but the smaller, less trivial things.  I put forth a very small desire before the Lord over a year ago and honestly never thought He would grant me that.  Well, let me tell you, He is so wild about me that he remembered my tiny plea.  He is answering my prayer because He cares and He notices me.  Everything about me.  The hairs on my head.  My likes/dislikes.  My quirks.  My bad habits.  I cannot tell you how good this feels to me.  If I would have only caught on earlier in life...  God is the most romantic being that I have ever or ever will encounter.  

Let Him romance you today!  Love love love you!

Throw away the key...

So, on my run today I listened to a podcast... can you believe that?  I know, crazy.  It was so amazing.  It was on the battlefield of your mind.  As I was running, I just kept thinking about what exactly it is that we are supposed to do with these 'thoughts'.  God gave me a picture of taking the thought (as if you could hold it) and throwing it into a jail cell.  Little does that thought know that his cell mate is Jesus.  ha ha ha ha.  Good luck with that one.  THEN, you get to throw away the key.  How comforting is that?  For we all know that the first of our battles start in our minds.  I also was reminded that God gave us 3 of the strongest weapons know to mankind...  1. the NAME of Jesus.  2.  the BLOOD of Jesus.  3.  the WORD of God.  You cannot lose when you equip yourself with these three things.  If you replace negative thoughts with truth, it squeezes out anything that is not of God.   For we know that the weapons we fight with  are not weapons of this world.  On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive EVERY thought and make it obedient to Christ.   Love you all.