Real Life Reflections

Perhaps you've heard of the "Boundaries" book series: Boundaries in Marriage , Boundaries with Children , and simply Boundaries . I read the Boundaries book on parenting years ago. I can highly recommend it. As far as I know though, Cloud and Townsend have not yet written a book on boundaries in prayer. Hmmmm. Wonder why that would be. Is it possible that there are no boundaries in prayer? According to Henri Nouwen (one of my favorite authors on prayer), there aren't. I read that little tidbit in my morning reading yesterday. An hour or so later, I checked my email to find that a friend had forwarded to me a devotional thought-for-the-day on the same topic. I John 5: “14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” The key to answered prayer seems to lie in the words, "if we ask an...

Take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. Deut 1:8 I don't know about you, but I'd really like that verse to read something like, "Here you go. Walk in and enjoy. It's all yours." I'd like to sit here and wait for God to plop something in my lap. I don't want to "take" anything. To take means I have to be proactive. Capture, grab, seize, grasp, and snatch are just a few of the synonyms for "take" according to dictionary.com. I like being the background person - the person behind the person, the mom. I like to take care of the one who is in the lime light whether the "lime light" refers to homework, soccer, cheer-leading, youth group, or business administration. It's comfortable here. No one is staring at me. I don't like people staring at me with expectation. I quit softball after a season or two in grade school because standing at bat, knowing that everyone had their eyes set on me was mo...

I witnessed a hug the other day. Big deal, right? People see other people hug all the time. Yeah, but this was a hug that melted my heart. We attended a graduation party in honor of our nephew. It was held under a pavilion. There was quite a spread of food, and each table was loaded with decorations and favors (very nicely done, Ange!). Obviously a lot of work . . . a lot of love was poured into this party. As the evening wound down, many of us hung around to help clean up. That's the un-fun part of a party. The un-fun part of this party became even more un-fun when, in an attempt to dump a drum of trash into a plastic trash bag, wet, gooey, smelley garbage ended up on the concrete floor of the pavilion. It was rank and disgusting, but my sister-in-law (the afore mentioned "Ange.") cleaned up without complaint. When the graduate meandered by shortly thereafter, I jokingly told him, in a scolding voice, that he had better get down on his knees in gratitude for all his moth...