Walk by Faith

Save...

Protect...

Provide...

Guide...

Keep...

Deliver...

God has done all of these things and more for Will this week.

This has been a week that if Will was not saved would have been hell for him.

The truck Will had been driving had been taken away from him, but God did provide transportation for him from very generous members of our body.

Allen Duty and Aaron Hendrick went out of their way this week to help Will. What an awesome staff we have. I loved when Aaron said to Will "someone gave me a truck, the least I can do is let you borrow it".

I tell you we are living out Acts 4 every day.

At the time the truck was taken from Will charges were not pressed. I truly believe that was an act of God to get Will where he needed to be to hear God and for him to be in church on Sunday to get saved.

Had Will been arrested on Saturday...unsaved...I believe his eyes, ears and mind would have been completely closed to God.

Praise God Will is saved, Will is in God's Word and Will is producing fruit.

Will is a new creation, but he also has consequences to pay for previous sin.

"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? Hebrews 12:5-7

When I shared this verse with Will he was very quiet. I think it was the first time he truly realized that he is a child of God and that God is his Daddy.

The consequences that Will has faced this week is that charges were made on the truck. But God has worked supernaturally this week to protect and guide and love on Will.

Will got a call on Tuesday from a detective, whom I will refer to as "angel" because that is what he has been. The detective told Will what was going on and told him exactly what he needed to do.

On Wednesday Will took the truck he was driving back to Aaron. Early that morning Will was reading about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and how Jesus prayed to God "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39

That is what Will prayed and for God to give him the strength to get through.

He continued to read about the persecution Jesus suffered and the beating and long walk he endured.

When Will returned the truck to Aaron, he offered him a ride, but Will wanted to walk to the City of College Station to turn himself in.

He said he felt God with him the whole time and his steps were actually light.

They did not have his warrant issued yet, so Will waited. I called him late that afternoon to find out what was going on. When I asked Will what he was doing, he simply replied "enjoying the sunshine".

It was getting close to five oclock and Will was not sure what to do. Detective "angel" appears at exactly the right moment to tell Will where to go in the morning and how to get everything done quickly.

When I told my boss what was going on, he GAVE me the money for Will's bond. He had just gotten the EXACT amount of money back as a rebate and he couldn't think of a better way to spend it.

When we went down this morning the bondsman was a MINISTER and every other word out of his mouth was JESUS!!! It was actually a good time.

Praise God everything is taken care of for now. Will can start his new job on Monday and have a company car.

Will is learning to face his battles head on and not run from them. He is learning to trust and obey.

Jehovah-Jireh...The Lord provides.

In His way and His time.

Not our way or our time...Praise God!!!

Salvation is Sweet

Our God is Amazing.

I stand more in awe and in love with Him every minute.

This is an incredible story that Will has given me permission to share.

I will give you a brief background. Will and I met in 1994 and were married in 1996. We were very happy but very lost. Michael was born in 1999 and Alex in 2002. By this point things had really gone down hill.

Shortly after Alex was born we split up for many reasons, mostly because we did not have the God glue to hold us together.

We were living in Nashville Tennessee at the time. I moved back home to College Station and Will moved to Pennsylvania.

I had been back in College Station about six months when God brought me to my wonderful church Living Hope. It was here that I came to know the Lord and grew in my relationship with Jesus.

Five years past...I get a phone call out of the blue from Will saying that he is moving back to Texas to be close to the boys. He knew he was missing everything and the way he was living he would be dead before he was forty.

My first thoughts were fear. Fear that he would come down and undo everything God had done in the past five years...Oh me of little faith.

What I failed to realize is that God was already working. Our God is so big and He begins to orchestrate a plan long before our little minds even know about it.

When Will got here, he came to church with us. He began to see what God can do, but there was still a part of him that wouldn't surrender. I say that word surrender because that is the word God gave me for him from the very beginning.

In order to surrender you have to have nothing left...no way out. This past Saturday was that day for Will.

The truck that he drove down here in was not in his name and by God's will not his to keep. Saturday morning Will gets stopped and they take the truck away...but that is all. The report said "seize the truck, but do not press charges" The police had never seen anything like that. They were dealing with God here.

So Will is on foot. I give him a ride home and tell him that God is God in the good times and the bad and that if he wanted help he was going to have to get real with himself and others.

Saturday night Will did not know where to turn, so he turned to the only thing he knew...alcohol. He was at rock bottom...even so far as to make sure his life insurance was paid.

God was still working...He had to get Will exactly where He needed to be able to hear Him.

I picked Will up for church on Sunday morning. He didn't want to come, but he did. I had to be at church early for a class and I told Will to hang around until the prayer fellowship. He said he was going to get breakfast. He walked all the way to Albertsons...that is a long stinkin way!!

On the way back to church, he still did not want to go and he started to think he would be late. Not coincidently, he is wearing the VBS shirt and a couple passing by him recognize it and stop to ask if he wants a ride.

He makes it back to church four minutes early.

We sit down in service and it could not have been more perfect. The message was all about God's love and it doesn't matter what is going on in life and where you are at, you can receive that love. All through the service I know I was shaking and feeling pretty sick to my stomach, so I can only imagine what he was feeling (actually I can...been there done that!!)

The invitation began, I had been praying for the song "I need you Jesus" and that was the first song. But it wasn't until they played "I SURRENDER ALL" that Will left my side and went to Butch. I hit the ground and several of us started praying hard for him.

At this point Will is sobbing and telling Pastor Butch that he can't do it anymore and that he wanted to get saved. Pastor Butch asked him if he believed that Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and was raised on the third day. Will said "with all of my heart". He turned and knelt at the altar, he said it was also because he could not walk. He told God "It is not me anymore, it is all You".

God is so sweet.

When he came back and sat down he told me what happened. I just hugged his neck and said "Thank You Jesus" and we cried.

Will said from that very moment everything looked different and felt different. He knows he has a rough road ahead but he also knows that he is ok because he has Jesus.

He shared a story with us last night. He was reading in Mark 4:1-9, the parable of the sower. He said that his whole life his seeds have been scattered on hard ground, not able to take root or grow. When he first got here, his seeds were scattered on rocky ground, they sprouted up but did not last long. As of June 10, 2007, Will's seeds are planted on good soil.

Praise God for good soil.

Just Plain Funny

Kevin...

He is a graduate of Texas A & M University...

He will be married to the lovely Lisa in August....

And he can party like there is no tomorrow at Chuck E Cheese...

Got to love it!!

The Beach

A couple of weeks ago we got to go to the beach in Galveston.

It was good to get away.

The kind of away that you just sit on the beach with nowhere to go.

That is what we did.

The first thing we did was bury Sydni. That pile in front of her is her legs.


The kids had so much fun. Michael and Sydni took to the water immediately.

Michael even went a little too far and had to be called back a few times.

Alex was not so sure. He would get close to the water and the wave would come it. I guess he thought it was chasing him, so he would run back on the beach.

He spent a lot of time running up and down the beach trying to catch seagulls. He got pretty close a few times.

Then they thought it was fun to make "sand angels". ..you want to talk about sand in every part of your body!

Then there were the sand castles. Cindy is an expert sand castle maker. Below is her hotel sand castle equipped with a pool and everything. It was so good that strangers walking by actually took a picture.

After the beach we ate at Joes Crab Shack and played putt-putt. It became Cindy's main goal to teach Michael to play putt putt well.

A good effort was made by both of them.

Alex played his own version of scoot the ball with the putt until it gets in the hole. Then he would get really excited and say "I did it"

I made a hole in one.

Sydni made a hole in one on the last hole and got a free game.

As Cindy and I got to rest and relax on the beach we enjoyed watching the ocean and the sky and at exactly the same moment we both had the same thought that "Even the winds and the waves obey Him" Matthew 8:27

The really great part is that I was thinking of the ocean becoming still and the winds calm while Cindy was thinking of the water raging up on the beach.

Our God is that big.

I love this picture of Alex above. Look at how big that ocean is next to him. We are so small compared to God's great creation yet His eye is always on us and He holds us in the palm of His hand.

What a comforting thought on such a relaxing day.