maybe that is not the way to put it… but He cracks me up… and it will be tough explaining what I mean here on the world wide web and still respect people’s privacy, but I will try…  on the Blue Bracelet forum (for members only), the little online study group we have going we have a thread for prayer requests and let me tell you some of them have been pretty heavy… and some of them have been to clean up after my natural bad habits (I had lost a library CD,)… some have been immediate (bless Shachah on a meeting with Record company)….some have been long term (direction for the future.)

We also have a thread for each of the week’s video sessions… Beth Moore can really lay some huge thoughts on you and we talk about the ones that hit in the solar plexus…. last week was particularly BIG… she spoke about areas where we compare ourselves to other people…and some of us at the forum shared areas where we ourselves do this… and Angie being very transparent listed a number of things, uhhhh… tucked into the list was something about the bathroom….

(now I might have at this moment made things worse in the whole privacy arena as you all are trying to guess what it might be… the point here is not what it is, rather that is was about the bathroom…in the midst of ministry concerns and cosmic theological questions…Angie tucked in a bathroom issue…{not about her} [I should really shut up now]) and I responded by praying for the bathroom matter (in writing on the forum.)

(another parenthetical side note Tammy models that for me all the time… I ask her to pray for something and she does,…. she does not tell me she will pray, or tell me to feel better, she prays… in email, over the phone, on the forum… she is so cool that way and has taught me so much)

I went to bed thinking, "hmmmmm maybe I should have prayed for, or at least commented on, some of the other matters"… this morning, Angie writes on the forum that my little prayer was God directed, and told me why…..

now why you may ask am I sharing this if I am leaving out all the details… why not just treasure it my heart… well, because I forget lots of times that God is always at work… and because there are some great stories to be told and they are still great even without all the play by play color commentary…

Tuesday: How Often Should I Forgive? Deuteronomy 3:25, 34-35,; Matthew 18:21-35

The parable of the two servants helps me put forgiveness in perspective. My debt to God far exceeds what anyone owes me. I thank God today for all the times he has forgiven me and I ask him to show me where I can rid my life of some of the clutter of bitterness I still harbour towards others.

I began this little 40 day de-cluttering journey with the idea that a little straightening out would be a good thing… and then God started doing some big stuff… I tell the girls when we get rid of things, clear clutter…  we make room for God to usher more bounty into our lives… and He has brought some abundance into my life recently…

I promised to introduce Valerie 2 to you…( for those who don’t know, I am Valerie 1… Valerie is my first name and I go by Beth these days for many reasons, but to some I will always be Valerie )

Valerie came into our lives November 1999. She was living in a group home that Emily and Hannah’s father directed. He introduced Valerie to Jesus. She started hanging out at our house… and she quickly became a part of the family… Life in this fallen world had been hard, very hard on her. But she persevered. She did not possess a sunny attitude, she was not happy- go- lucky…she had concerns that many of us would never face in a lifetime… but she did not make herself unreachable. She let us into her heart… and in particular, she let me in… she brought herself to our family and she enriched our lives, enlarged our horizon…  there were plans in the works for her to come to live with us… and those plans fell apart… and she went to live with some friends of ours in another city…. and that did not work out in the long term… and then things got very hard for our family… and we lost track of each other… and that has been a  grief in my life… I had promised to always be there for her. I had promised to be a mom that lasts forever (to quote Emily’s and my song… )   And I failed…

Valerie found us…. tracked us down …  she has done so much with her life… she graduated high school, she earned her AA from Miami -Dade College, and is planning to get a degree in midwifery… she has a son! She works full-time and goes to school. She wants to give back to the foster care community. She is going back to Calvary Chapel. Did I mention that she forgives me and loves me still? 

Last week, Mary thought about her, and prayed to get in touch with her again, not knowing that Valerie had already found Melinda on facebook and was writing me… God answers us even before we pray for it…

ps..Valerie 2 is much better than what it used to be: "Young Valerie " and….. ????

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