Craziness

I just sometimes have to stop and profess out loud to the Lord...

"THIS IS CRAZY!"

It still makes no sense whatsoever to me that God would or could allow me to be part of Wellspring Living. A few weeks ago I had the very special privilege to go to Atlanta and say a few words at a conference they were holding. The greatest part was that I spent the night in the Wellspring Home and met 6 beautiful young women, seven including the coach.
I arrived at the house a little while before Mary Frances (Atlanta Ministry President). It was such a beautiful day, I decided to sit out in the warm air. While I was sitting there I noticed the shadow of a bird. As I looked up I saw that it was a hawk. I looked again and there were two.
Off in the distance there was another. They soon joined together and began to circle over the Wellspring Home. It was all I could do not to cry. It was as though God was showing me a symbol of His protection over Wellspring.
I did a Google search to see what the hawk might represent. Here are a few things that popped up from the search...
... a yearning for freedom
... new power

I like that! A yearning to be free from the past and exchanging the old for the new!

One of the ladies I met had only been in the home a week. She had traded prison clothes for jeans and tees. You could see the new power had already begun to transform her. All she did was giggle and laugh and had the sweetest demeanor about her. As she shared her life story, I felt like she was going to make it. Determined to let God win this battle she had fought most of her life. You go girl! YOU GO GOD!!! Do Your thing Lord... do Your thing!!

God - YOU are wild and wonderful and YOU do the craziest of things in the craziest of ways!
May we be aware of you in the things we see around us. Help us to understand You the best we can! Be blessed always and forever... suz

Ready, set - - - - - go!

Seems as though we are getting a little closer to the dreaded thing that I have been putting off for sometime now. No, it is not a trip to the dentist! Not that I don't need to do that too. Maybe one day Gretchen and I can do that together.
I did do one thing the other week when I went and talked to my friend that owns "The HOUSE". That one turned out really great. But then there is the trip to see the owner of the Wellspring Store. I don't know why I am so afraid to go. But I am! God has twice through scripture told me that the owner's heart is prepared. I know he won't hurt me or harm me. The worst thing he can do is throw me out of his office or say "no". And I guess that is what scares me most. That after all this putting off, I missed God.
God continued to confirm last week that not only has He prepared the owners heart, but He has done a little prep work with me too. Several of us went to SCC to hear Ruth McWhite speak last week. One of the scriptures she shared was from

Jeremiah 1... I'll tell you where to go and you'll go there.I'll tell
you what to say and you'll say it. Don't be afraid of a
soul.I'll be right there, looking after you." God's
Decree. God reached out, touched my mouth, and said,
"Look! I've just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered!See
what I've done? I've given you a job to do among nations and
governments—a red-letter day!

I like a red letter day... that must mean Jesus is speaking - right? So, even if the gentleman says "no" that will be OK. The outcome is more about my obedience and giving God the opportunity to speak than the owner saying "yes". Yes, would be the icing on the cake. The cake would be the opportunity we have in representing Christ to a lost world.

Then, like that WORD wasn't enough... I called a friend of mine who knows the owner and his wife and asked her if she might be interested in going with me. She said yes, that we needed to set a day and fast and pray leading up to it.
I was doing my daily Bible reading and JUST HAPPENED to be at

Matthew 21... You'll find a donkey tethered there, her colt with her. Untie her
and bring them to me. If anyone asks what you're doing, say, 'The Master needs
them!' He will send them with you."

I had read that story many times, but never realized that Jesus asked for the donkey and her colt! Why He needed tow, I don't know. But it sure was sweet to feel like He was saying that it was part of His plan to take someone with me!
The sweet part is "any old donkey will do" and now she has more help to get it done!

So please pray for our hearts and our words and all that God has ordained for the day we go and do it! I'll let you know when we schedule an official date.

Mucho-thanks for the prayers!

Cease Striving

The new pics above are commonly know as the "Money Plant". Many years ago on a small mountain top, our prayer group gathered for brunch and a time of prayer. Our dear friend Denise gave us all seed packets containing seeds for what you see in the pictures above. The seed pack was titled "Everlasting" and the plant is also known as "Honesty". I struggled year after year to get some to grow. Results... nothing. Many years after the mountain top gathering my daughter Sarah's best friends mom and dad were killed in a tragic accident. Many days after the accident, I would go to their house and just sit in the drive way and cry. On one of those days I noticed something growing in the wooded area in front of their house. It was the dried silvery disk of the Money Plant scattered all around. I gathered many stalks and took them home with me as a remembrance of Mike and Jo and of what had once been.
When we moved into our new home in 2003, I put a few of the stalks in an arrangement on our front porch. The following spring I noticed something growing behind the white fence at the end of our driveway. I asked Ray not to cut it or spray it, but to let it grow in case it was something we liked. I didn't recognize it when the purple blooms first opened. As the weeks passed and the blooms gave way to these round green disks, I wondered could it be? Then a few weeks later I knew for certain that it was the Money Plant. What I had tried so hard to do resulted in nothing. What God did resulted in the desires of my heart becoming a reality.
There was only one stalk and it grew to be at least a foot tall with hundreds of little shimmering disks. One morning as I came to my driveway at the end of my morning walk "Days of Elijah" had just started playing on my ipod. How could my walk end when the song was only beginning? As I danced in our driveway I spotted what seemed to be the best pom-pom a cheerleader ever had.
You guessed it... the money Plant! I danced and shook, and danced and shook. As I did, all the seeds began spilling out from under the little covers. That was two years ago. (They are biennials) Last year when all these little green plants popped up I knew what they were and how the might have ended up all over the place. If it wasn't raining so today, I would go out and count them to see just how many did take root and are covered with the purple blooms today.

They are a reminder to me that just like Wellspring, God placed the desire in my heart and all my work will result in nothing unless it is work ordained by Him. Just like the Money Plant... in His time Wellspring will be established just like the plants growing in my yard.

Thank you Lord, for hearts desires that you plant and water and grow. Thank you for what is and what is yet to come. We worship You with a grateful heart.

Memories

It's a good thing when you can know that you know that you know. When you start getting invitations from AARP, it's sometimes another thing to be able to remember all that you might at one time have known.
The latest thing to prompt the question... "did I know that?" came this week. On Monday, I read Matthew 14 where Jesus fed the five thousand. Then on Tuesday as I was reading Matthew 15, there Jesus was feeding the four thousand. Did I remember that He did that on two different occasions? I think so. It seems as though the first time Jesus fed the crowds was only days before He fed the second group. It just seemed a little odd that the disciples are asking Him such a question in Matthew 15:33... "where could we get enough bread in this remote area to feed such a crowd?"
I had to "lol" They sure were slow learners.
Then I think Jesus Himself must have been "lol" at me!

There are a lot of things we are asking related to Wellspring. Things like where on earth are we going to get the money to buy the house? The house! Where on earth are we going to get enough money to sustain the ministry? Where on earth are we going to get coaches to live with our girls? How on earth are we (am I) going to be able to pull such a grand plan off?
Then there is my personal life apart from the ministry. I have many things I am asking God "how God, how?"

Slowly, the old noggin' kicks back in and says... "oh Susan, don't you remember the time when God did..." Yes Lord, I do remember.

If you have never done Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby, may I strongly recommend it?
In the book Henry talks about spiritual markers. Things that God does throughout our lives and we place stones of remembrance like the Israelites did. As I went throughout the day yesterday, God reminded me of one that I would like to share with you.

In the spring of 1999, someone very dear to my heart was arrested in Asheville. When we were preparing to go and bring him home we were told that it would cost us $150 to get him out. What they didn't tell us was that $150 was only if you went through a bails bondsman. We (Jenn and me) realized after we were standing there with our $150 that what we really needed was $1500. We searched the Asheville skyline for bank signs and proceeded to see what we could do with our ATM cards. Before we put the cards into the machines we prayed and told the Lord that if it was His will for us to do this, He would have to provide. Taking everything we could from the accounts we could access, along with the $150 that we had to start with we were still $20 short.
Was it not the Lord's will? How could we come so close and not make it? Then all of a sudden Jenn remembered that her grandmother had given her $20 for gas money! We had to the penny all that we needed.
Jesus came through with exactly what we needed!

So for everything I have been wondering "how?" God has an answer. He has reminded me through His forgetful disciples that just like in times past... He can do it again!

I don't know what you might need to be reminded of from your past with our great God. Search your memories and know that He is the same. He can do it again... and again... and again!

Now that calls for a BIG WOO - - HOO ! !