Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Blessed to be Busy

Do you ever want to send out an email to your entire address list or record a blanket voicemail that says, "If I owe you a letter, email, check, call, reply or hug... please excuse me right now. My life couldn't get any crazier." I'm afraid if I did that, someone would say, "But you had time to send that message."

Being underemployed this year, I have come to view work as a blessing, not only for the monetary security it provides, but for the human contact, too. God has answered my prayers, and I am busy with work. So please know that I have no complaints, but if I am behind on my email... it's not personal, it's divine!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Tell Someone

Tell someone today why he or she is special, talented or loved.

"Perhaps once in a hundred years a person may be ruined by excessive praise, but surely once every minute someone dies inside for lack of it." -- Cecil G. Osborne

Friday, October 12, 2007

A New Ministry?

Have you ever been to a bus station? Four years ago, my husband and I were working for the Law Enforcement Television Network and covered an effective program conducted by the Tallahassee, Florida Police Department. Officers had a strategy for finding drug dealers who were traveling by bus. Tallahassee is a big hub, because it is the convergence of highways going west to Pensacola and beyond... east to Jacksonville... north to Atlanta and south to Orlando and Tampa.

As Mark rolled his video camera that day and I interviewed police officers, I couldn't help but notice the bus passengers. They had sad, tired faces. Many carried grocery bags as suitcases. You know how people going on vacation at the airport have happy children and smiles on their faces? None of that here. The kids looked scared and the parents looked tense. Some looked hungry and didn't have change for the vending machines. Others looked as if they hadn't had a shower in days or didn't own a change of clothes. It dawned on me that if you had money, you didn't ride the bus--you drove your car or bought a plane ticket.

"This is a place of need," I thought. "You could really help people." Ideas ranged from handing out water bottles and healthy snacks to giving away Bibles and canvas bags. Maybe even wet wipes or diapers. From time to time, I thought about what a "bus station ministry" could do and wondered how or when I would try to start something like that in my community.

Then God intervened. We had a caller on our radio show yesterday from Tallahassee. I mentioned on the air that I had an idea for a ministry, but time didn't allow me to describe it. After the show, another caller, from Georgia, sent an email saying he lived close to Tallahassee, so I wrote him about the bus station.

He called back on the air today to say he was going to present the ministry idea to his Sunday school class! I was so excited tears came to my eyes.

To top it off, before the show aired, we prayed that someone with Krohn's Disease would call in-- because another faithful listener had sent a book for us to give to someone with that condition. The caller who wants to start the bus ministry has a wife. Guess what she suffers from?

God is full of surprises. Can you believe how He is working to get people taken care of? Wow.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

His Eye is on the Pomeranian

Yesterday, my husband just happened to come home mid-morning to pick up a piece of equipment from his home office to take to his job, four blocks away. He just happened to leave the gate open.

As he left the back door, he sounded startled: "Oh! That's not one of our dogs."

And instantly, I fell in love with a blonde, hairy canine. Her tag read, "Shasta," and we started calling the numbers listed. Quickly, a vet's office connected us to the owner. I heard Mark say, "Mr. Newsom..." and I shouted, "It's Coach Jim's dog!" Coach Jim is our neighbor down the street and a well-known fixture in the Fort Worth running community.

Coach Jim is also a Christian and didn't even know his dog had escaped the yard. I carried Shasta down the street, where I met Coach Jim. He explained that his pastor had come over to swim (that's a whole other story) and left the gate open.

Coach Jim was so happy to see Shasta. His wife raises Dobermans, but he said, "This is the smartest dog we've ever had. She's my dog."

I smiled, happy that God was watching over the Pomeranians. I knew the chances were small that Shasta would enter a yard where people would instantly return her to her owner, so he wouldn't worry.

God is good.