Month: March 2018

There’s nothing like being woken up at 3:42am. There’s really nothing like being woken up at 3:42am and being told by the Holy Spirit to pray for someone who has been vindictive and mean to you. Especially someone who has never met you and has created a fantasy persona about you on the Internet.

There are a number of individuals who heartily dislike me based on reviews I’ve written. They have been able to cull together a picture of me in their minds and that picture is based mostly on my love of God,my children and grandchildren as well as my enjoyment of reading and crafting. While there have been several such individuals, the most long standing is a lady I will refer to as G.

G. and I were both part of a reviewing program on a large internet store. On this store was a forum set up for people in the group (though it wasn’t limited to them and anyone could read and respond to the posts.) I rarely posted but once I had done so, this woman took offense at what I had to say.

Interestingly, all I had said was 1) my son passed away from leukemia at 18 and 2) my daughters were both strong young women who enjoyed the sciences and had overcome learning challenges to get to where they were. That one was a mechanical engineer and the other was getting her degree as a mathematics scientist. When other individuals on this forum empathized with me about my son, I responded by saying I would meet him in heaven one day.

I think it was this comment that burned into G. I knew nothing about her (though someone later exposed her personal information in an unkind manner.) From the moment of that particular post, G. has had a crusade against me where ever she posts, which is a dwindling number as forums, apparently, keep banning her from posting. When I moved to the top of this reviewing program’s list of high ranking reviewers, it apparently enraged G. beyond measure.

I don’t follow her around, but I did follow the reviewing group when the internet store recently dropped their forums. Sure enough, once again, G. was guaranteed to talk about me poorly whenever possible. Equally sure was that the authoritative statements she made about me were all false. What was funny was that she had no idea I was on this new forum, she was just trying to poison the group against me in general.

So, I guess one might understand that I didn’t feel too kindly about G. and her comments. They hurt and made me feel very badly both about G. and about myself. I never responded in a bad manner. When it first started, I invited her to have a reasonable discussion but that was no good. As I am not one to post on forums (certainly no more than a couple of handfuls in my life), I was able to ignore her and/or turn the other cheek easily. I was also pleased to see individuals who came to my defense.

So I was feeling very righteous and good about myself. That is until I heard a sermon which included a reference to loving and praying for your enemies. Well, three names came immediately to my mind (all from the internet store as it turns out) and I thought, seriously God, I have to pray for them? I am not responding to them, I’m not even thinking too badly of them. I have to love and pray for them as well?

I starting praying for them and especially G. She was sticking out for some reason. The other two were even more unpleasant to me and about me but one had suffered a traumatic brain injury in her twenties and the other was embroiled in both drug and satanic cultures. I could see that something outside of themselves was causing their issues.

G., on the other hand, had serious problems in her personal life. This became known when the other individual posted links to a newspaper article about G. being arrested and other information about her. I must admit that I read it. I was very sorry for her problems but I didn’t empathize with her. I had that lovely feeling you get when you want to say, what you reap is what you sow.

So, I prayed for these three and asked my husband to join me on occasion. However, it was always with my mind and intellect that I was responding, never with my emotions and heart. Kind of like when a child says they are sorry because their parent told them to do so. You know that it is just words and the child is not at all sorry for what they have done. So to, were my lip service prayers for these three.

Just last Sunday, which was Palm Sunday, a pastor at my church was preaching about God’s love for us. A love so great that He stepped down to earth, to live as a man among us. To endure the same temptations, scorn and abuse that we all have to deal with. And He, being fully God while at the same time fully man, was able to love those who treated Him so badly. He loved them so much, He was willing to step in and take their punishment for sin on His own body. He loved them even as they mocked Him, beat Him almost to the point of death, and ultimately, hung Him on a cross to die.

It made me stop and think about how I feel about my enemies. I must admit, I fall so fall short of this type of love, there may not be a known measurement small enough to categorize it.

It is Jesus’ kind of love that we are commanded show our enemies. After all, when Jesus died for us, we had all sinned and were all, because of sin, his enemies. We all abandoned Him, every single one of us. There He hung, with love for each of us in his heart and in His deeds. Even as He took our sin punishment of death and we denied Him, He never faltered or said, but God, they deserve to die for their own sins. Why should We make such a sacrifice for these sinners?

If you stop and think about the individuals you would die to protect, chances are good, like me, that most are relatives, perhaps children. Almost certainly not casual friends or neighbors. Definitely not those who are treating you poorly. How about a serial killer who tortures and murders children? What about someone like Hitler or Mao or Stalin? Absolutely not, right?

Jesus loved them and died for them, too. He would have taken the ultimate punishment if only one of them could be saved and the rest of the world lost.

I’m so glad that Jesus wasn’t like me. That He loved so much more and so much more freely. He didn’t take the attitude that you reap what you sow. If He had, I would be completely lost.

Back to the sermon… the pastor threw a statement at the end of it for each of us to pray for an individual that we disliked, even if the prayer wasn’t heartfelt. It struck me like a bolt that I was supposed to pray for G. Not the three women, just her. I was to pray with my heart and emotions and not just with my mind.

Once the sermon was over, I asked my husband who he was supposed to pray for. He responded, G. That was confirmation enough. We stopped what we were doing and starting praying for her. We have continued to pray for her both together and separately. This time, with more feeling that ever before.

I found out, around this time, that G. had been booted out of the reviewer forum. As to why,I have no idea; however, I knew that others had suffered her mocking as well and probably just got tired of dealing with her constant sniping. She was also being vilified (and deservedly so) at another forum that I know of.

Wednesday night (or more accurately, Thursday morning), at 3:42am, I woke up, saw the time and started to go back to sleep. The voice of God came into my mind with an urgent command. He said, Pray for G. I’ve learned the hard way, it is best to obey God immediately when He gives a command or request that is undeniable. He didn’t have to say it twice this time.

So, I starting praying for her. I have no idea what is going on in her life but I prayed for her deliverance from whatever it is and for her salvation. I prayed for her hurt and pain to go away. That she find the loving Savior to bring comfort to her life.

My prayers were different this time. They were loving and sincere as if she was my best friend. I was crying for her and wishing with my whole heart and mind that her eternal life could be saved. As suddenly as I woke up, I knew I was to stop praying and go back to sleep. I immediately fell asleep and slept through the rest of the night. I will continue to pray for her, but this time, with my whole heart.

Whether or not my prayers were effective for her so far, I may never know this side of heaven. I will continue praying for her fervently until I hear from her directly that my prayers have been answered.

The blessing I have personally received by listening to and obeying God is that I know that I have changed for the better. I don’t feel the way I did before. As Jesus commanded, I am learning to love and to pray for those who hurt me. I’m learning, bit by bit, to be more like Christ.

1 John 3:2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

The doctors were perplexed when it came to diagnosing my illness. You see, I not only had pneumonia, breathing issues, and low oxygen rates, I was also coughing up blood. I was repeatedly asked if I had left the country in the past few weeks, if I had recently been to Africa, or if I had been around someone who had been there.

It was an interesting set of questions as I had certainly not been traveling but a worker at a big box store, who had an African accent, was so taken with my eyeglasses, that she took them off my face and put them on her own. I was a little taken aback but thought maybe that was part of her culture. I asked the doctors if that might be the answer they were looking for.

But no, that was not it. I realized that they were looking for some sort of Ebola-style virus because of my symptoms… that, and the fact that they had put me in an airborne infection isolation room. It was a bit funny to me, sick as I was, that they were wearing their hazmat gear but my husband was sitting by my side in his regular clothes and was being allowed to come and go as he pleased.

They pretty quickly decided I was not airborne contagious and then moved me into a droplet contagious isolation room. The Infectious Diseases doctor told me he was running every known test (thank goodness for good healthcare insurance) and the tests were coming back negative. Still, he started me on a wide variety of antibiotics which I stayed on until I was released from the hospital but had me moved into a regular pulmonology hospital room for the rest of my stay.

The first pulmonologist I saw was determined that I had a progressive lung disease or, at best, an auto-immune disease. He rotated off and a new pulmonologist, Dr. V appeared. She asked me the same sort of questions but then asked if there was anything around the house that I might have inhaled. I thought about it and then told her about the new old stock that I had from my internet needlework business. Based on the age of the business, there would not have been an issue; however, I had bought the stock of an older distributor/store that might have had items as old as forty years. That, she determined, could have caused an allergic reaction.

She started me on steroids which, as she told me later, saved my life. She told my husband to remove all of the craft items from the house and have it cleaned before she would release me to come home. He got it accomplished in two days. What she said to me was that my craft items and various collections were “Toxic to you. They will kill you.”

Once I got home, I thought about this warning. In my mind’s eye, the items aged and rotted and were good for nothing short of a hazardous waste dump. When I said as much to my husband, he was in shock. He reminded me that we had always packed everything very well for storing, that I included damp removers in the room they were stored and that everything was brand-new and in great condition.

That had been part of the problem. We had been carrying these items around with us for 12 years at great expense when storing them and, when moved into our house, taking up a large amount of room. It wasn’t as if I could possibly finish all of the kits, let alone the patterns, in my lifetime. My husband and I used to joke that the two of us could finish them during the 1,000 year reign of Christ (maybe.)

I had sold a good bit of it on Ebay but when my grandson had heart surgery at six weeks old, I stopped selling and also my needlework designs and instead started watching him Monday through Friday while his parents worked. It was a wonderful release and I enjoyed watching him so much. Once he was well enough for preschool, I decided not to sell and postponed design work indefinitely. We still had way too much, especially of the needlework kits and patterns.

Periodically, my husband and I would get determined to just dump everything except for a few of the items which we had purchased for our own use. That included not only the needlework items but also several other craft collections we had amassed together.

As we would start to go through the items, we would be reminded of how much money they were worth and I would say that maybe I should try to sell them once again. That must have happened three or four times in the last two years. While I would not feel like doing the work to sell them, we could not keep from looking back at the money they cost and that they could earn.

So, once again, I was determined to dump everything and my husband brought up their worth and that, unlike what the doctor thought, they were in great condition. So, I took it to the Lord.

This was during the weeks when I could not fall asleep at nights (due to steroids) and the Holy Spirit was keeping me company throughout those hours. When I asked if I should dump everything, I was told no. So I asked if I should sell everything and again I was told no. So I asked if I was supposed to keep these items.

God told me no, once again. However, this time, He told me that while the items were not toxic to me physically (which was later confirmed by the Mayo Clinic), they were toxic to me spiritually. I was putting the price and value of physical things ahead of spiritual things. Because of my attitude, the things which were not harmful in their own right, became things of the world, sinful and deadly.

He told me that I needed to give away those items which were only worth money to me (keeping only that which He approved of) and to stop looking back at those things and the life that He had removed us from. It was time to move forward and look ahead, not to wallow and get stuck in and unable to move out of the past. But, instead, to have a future and a life with deeper meaning and to do the work He had for me to do.

To say that I was shocked was to put it mildly. I had never, until then, thought of the items as sinful. I knew that I wanted to be rid of them but neither my husband nor myself could bring ourselves to throw them away. But to give them away? We both love giving to others.

As confirmation, the next day, I received a flyer in the mail that listed all of the assisted living facilities in my town. I knew then who should receive the items. I wanted to hurry up and get well so I could go drop them off. I kept setting deadlines and missing them. It just wasn’t for me to do. Between recovering (and an additional lung surgery) and the horrible ‘flu epidemic this year, I needed to stay home.

Then God sent my home health physical/respiratory therapist. I was supposed to work with one individual and, instead, another one showed up. Within a short time, I found out that he was a Christian and that he worked with assisted living housed patients. When I asked if he would be willing to take my collection items to the groups he worked in, he said yes. I realized at that point that God had sent him for this purpose as well as my therapy.

So, for the first time in years, we are clearing the collections out of the house for good. There are some items which I get to keep (though I will do a second run through those as well.) Between my therapist and the Salvation Army, God is taking the burden off of our shoulders and providing it to those who can use it. We are still only halfway through but we know, in a short time, we will be able to remove this anchor to the past which has been keeping us from moving forward.

Because of our sin nature, we can bring sin into our lives in many different ways. For me, one way was by holding onto the past. If you feel like there are things from your past, either belongings or habits that may be holding you back, I ask you to look at your life. Try to identify what things or habits you have, in time and thought and even pocketbook, put ahead of the Lord. Ask God what He wants from you. Perhaps these are the things that, like me, have been holding you back from the path that Jesus wants you to walk.

Genesis 19:26 But Lot’s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

When I was a little girl, about four years old, my parents would send the four of us kids to Sunday School each week. I don’t seem to remember them attending very often themselves but we kids would take the bus to the local Nazarene Church.

Sunday School was a wonderful time for me. I loved hearing the teacher talk about Jesus and how much He loved us all. My family was large but, sadly, there wasn’t much love in it. There was arguing and even worse pretty much every day of the week. I was as much of the problem as anyone, being sullen and unhappy. I would talk back and do things I knew would make my parents angry with me.

So, going to such a beautiful place and learning about someone who loved me was the high point of my week and even of my life. I looked forward to it and was happy to be learning memory work so I could say the verses to myself throughout the week.

When a child turned five at this Sunday School, you would graduate into the older group from the preschool group. Just before that date, my Sunday School teacher told us about sin. That it was breaking our Father’s rules. I understood that very well as I knew I was breaking my own parent’s rules. I didn’t understand, until that point, that I was also breaking God’s rules.

Even as a five year old, I felt convicted of sin as much as I have ever felt as an adult. I spent the following week so unhappy just thinking about how bad a girl I had been and how I could not make myself do anything to make it go away.

The next Sunday, the teacher told us how Jesus had died for our sins and asked if any of us wanted to accept Jesus and His forgiveness and ask Him to take control of our lives.

Though I was a shy child, in this case, I jumped up to be first in line. I remember bowing my head and asking Jesus to save me and make me a good girl. I knew that He had done so because I started being able to talk to Him within my thoughts and could feel His comfort and response. The next week I graduated and was given my own Bible to commemorate the event.

I would love to say that I started living a Christian life right then but, instead, we moved away for a year and did not go to church. When we moved back, church was not something we did on a regular basis. The only teaching I got at that point was from the Bible classes I could take twice a week when a local church sent a bus to sit just outside my elementary school campus.

When we again moved, that stopped and so did church of any sort. My parents were Christians in name only which is to say, they were not Christians at all. So, the days of my learning about the Bible were at an end, except for reading from the Bible I was given years before.

I soon began conforming to the world. I still felt oddly protected from much of what was commonplace for teens at the time. I didn’t drink or take drugs or indulge in the behavior that many of my friends were involved in. Even my next older sister and older brother were into all of those things. They tried to get me to do drugs and more but, I think, God kept His hand on me and protected me from all of this.

It was when my next older sister found Jesus and was on fire talking about him, that I actually started behaving poorly. I didn’t want to hear her but she simply would not stop talking. Anyone who ever knew my sister, Kiki, would say amen. She could talk and she loved talking about the love of Jesus and His salvation message.

She passed away last year and what I remember most about her was lifelong passion for Christ. She is responsible for bringing the word of salvation into our family. She was so persistent because she cared so much. She got my mother to start watching Christian television because, after she divorced my father, my mother would not set foot in a church.

As soon as I was able to, I moved out on my own. It was at that time that I started behavior that would bring my world crashing in on me. When it happened and my life bottomed out, I remembered what my sister had talked about and also about Christian television.

When, in desperation, I turned it on, the preacher, Dwight Thompson, was talking. It was as if he knew all about me and what I had done and what had happened to me. As I sat on my sofa and wept, he told me that Jesus still loved me, no matter what I had done or what had happened in my life. He gave an altar call that I responded to, flat on my face on my living room floor.

In the years and decades since then, I have always known Jesus as my Savior. There were times, even years, when I didn’t give much thought to Him and certainly very little time or effort in telling others about Him. I was too busy living life and raising my children.

God took a distant place in my life. When my son passed away after an almost two year battle with leukemia, I started placing God first once again but still did little to further His Kingdom. I did insert Him into my (now closed) internet business and, at His request, I told the story of my son’s illness and death and linked to it from the first words on this business homepage.

This was the first time I had written specifically for God and at His request. Even though that business is closed, we still keep the story where others can read it. This is David’s story: A True Story.

When I was brought back from the brink of death, I started looking back at what I’ve done with my life. It was the times when I, essentially, turned my back on God that I regret the most. My wasted years were those times when I could have been doing something, anything, to further the Word of His saving and healing power.

During the last few months, the need to take action on Jesus’ behalf has sat on me like a weighted stone on my chest. Here I was, unable to leave the house. Weak, dependent on oxygen 24/7, even immunosuppressed for a good portion of the time. The irony was evident to me, of course. When I was able to get out and about, I didn’t use my time wisely. Once I was ill and could not leave the house, that was when I wanted most to begin my work for Him.

Once I realized that I was supposed to write and found the subject that I was to write about, I questioned God as to whether or not this was His calling on my life.

His response was in the form of two questions. He asked if He could rely on me. Then He asked me if I was willing to live the life and to do the work He had called me to with the gifts that He had given me. Now, today, with no more waiting to be a better person, to feel a bit stronger, or to wait for a burning bush style sign from heaven. No more excuses, no more delays, no more fear of the unknown. His questions were: Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?

Here am I, Lord. Send me.

John 3:16-17 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

I had been told that I was going to die and soon. To get my affairs in order. It turned out that God had a different plan. He had something more He wanted me to do. Something that I had been ignoring and, instead, had been going my own way through life. It took a drastic turn of events to get my whole attention, but this was certainly the point at which I stopped what I was doing to reassess my life.

I’ve been a Christian for more than four decades. During that time, while knowing Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior, I haven’t given serious thought to where and what God wanted me to do. Measuring by man’s standard, I have been successful at almost everything I have put my hand to. Among them, I’ve worked my way up a large technical company to a high-paid and respected position with lots of travel and perks. I’ve also had a very successful internet business. Most recently, I have attained (and maintained for the last two years) the top reviewer position at a well-known internet shopping site.

During the days following my hospitalization last November, I was being both comforted and schooled by the Holy Spirit during the long hours I was awake. The steroids I had been given kept me awake constantly for weeks. You can see my earlier blog post about those days here: It sure beats counting sheep…

I was told, in no uncertain terms, that for at least a short time, I was to stop posting reviews of a certain type on that commerce site. I was allowed to write them for my own blog and youtube channel and even to post them elsewhere. There wasn’t anything wrong with the products I was reviewing nor with my reviewing them. What was wrong was how I felt about posting the reviews at the big site. I had let it become too important to me.

For a number of weeks, it was a moot point. I wasn’t feeling well enough to do much more than just get through the day. With each day, I felt stronger and started feeling boredom. I started to fall back into the bad behavior pattern. After all, the reviews were written and I was posting them elsewhere, why not there as well?

Around the same time, I was told that I would have to have a surgery to help diagnose the root of my health issues. That surgery set me back to barely getting through the day.

As I recovered a bit this time, I might have gone back to my ways but, in the meantime, my husband and I had started attending a new church via the internet. They were just starting a new series on Pick One, a discussion about making decisions. The focus was finding the path God wanted for you. If ever anything was meant for me to study, it was this. All of the sermons in this series meant much to me but two things really stand out.

In one sermon, the senior pastor posed these questions:

What are you doing now that you that you know you shouldn’t be doing?

What are you not doing now that you know you should be doing?

The first question was easy to answer. It was something that God and I had been discussing for a couple of months by that point. Changing my behavior had been difficult.

Trying to find out what I should be doing was even more difficult. It certainly would have been a lot easier if God spoke to me out of a burning bush and told me what to do. While that would have made my life easier, it would not have allowed me to grow and learn in my walk with Him.

Instead, I started thinking about what it was that I really wanted to do. I also asked other Christians close to me what they thought my skill or gift might be. The answer was always the same – I was told “you are a storyteller and a writer – you need to write.”

One might think that writing reviews would fulfill that gift. Especially when I had attained one of the most sought after positions as far as reviewers are concerned. But I was being told that while I could continue to write and post other reviews, I was to stop posting the type of reviews that put me in that top position. I was good at it and successful, wasn’t that enough to fulfill my writing desires?

Then, in another sermon in the same series, a teaching pastor made a statement that stopped me dead in my tracks and made me ponder everything I have done in my life. To paraphrase what he said, “If you succeed at doing the wrong things, then you are failing.”

You would also think that being at the top of the heap would have given me some sense of satisfaction, well-being, or perhaps a little self-glory. Nope, not at all. It was nothing to me. If anything, having once attained this high rank, I felt somehow compelled, against my will, to keep up the work to retain it. Interesting, isn’t it? Something that I didn’t want and didn’t care about became something that consumed my thoughts, my work, my money and almost my life.

When I started looking back over what I had accomplished in my life, I realized that, apart from my children and family, all else that I had worked for was meaningless. There was no “there” there. When everything was said and done, no one would remember any of it.

I began searching for what it was that I was supposed to write about or which genre would be the one that I would approach. My husband and I spoke at length about it. Throughout my “writing” career over the decades, my efforts had been either as employee for various companies or under a pen name for reviews. I had never put myself out there under my own name. I realized that whatever it was that I was supposed to write, it would have to be under my name. There would be nothing hidden this time.

Oddly enough, years ago, my husband had obtained a website address that was my name. I had forgotten all about it until this point. It came to mind and I realized that, initially, my writing would be on this website. But what?

Again, in the Pick One series at church, there was a study guide question that had immense significance to me during this period of indecision. It was:

How have you seen God use your life experiences and past hurts to help, comfort, and minister to others? Has that helped bring clarity to your calling?

Once I read those two sentences, I knew what I was supposed to write about on my website: my life experiences and past hurts. I had finally found what I was searching for.

That is how this blog began. I’ve found the path that God wants me to be on and the way to use the gift of communication He has given me. I will continue it as long as God directs me to do so. Each week, as I sit down to write, I think I know what my subject will be. Each week, I’ve written something entirely different from what my thoughts were inclined toward. I’ve found that His ways and thoughts are much better than mine.

I have found that writing these stories are both emotionally trying and, at the same time, immensely satisfying in a way my work has never been before. It is my deepest wish that these stories will bring some measure of comfort and assistance to you. That God will use these words to minister to you as well.

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

When my husband and I decided to move from Austin to Collin County (suburb just north of Dallas, TX), our hearts were set on living in Plano, the city where our eldest daughter lived.

The decision to move was easy. I had been terribly allergic to Mountain Juniper. It is one of those things that are an incredibly high allergen, even referred to as toxic. During the seven years we lived in Austin, once diagnosed, I had to stay at home, indoors, from November through March each year. If I ventured outside, I would wear a mask and cover my eyes and ears until we were out of the nature preserve area we lived in near Lake Travis.

My allergy meant we would move eventually but I was content to stay home. Even when I tore my hamstring laterally (an injury that may never heal) and had problems getting up and down the stairs to our bedroom, I was content. It was when my husband started developing hives all over (and he is diabetic) that we knew we had to move and soon. In addition to that, a further incentive arose when my elder daughter told us that she and her husband were eager to start a family. Then, our younger daughter (who lives in Austin), informed us that she was getting married. It seemed like the path was open for us to move.

Well, except that we could not find a house! We were able to sell our house quickly and the new owners needed to get into it as soon as possible (they had triplets and really needed the larger space the house would provide.) So, we ended up staying in the apartment we had rented in Austin (we wanted to keep the cats safe while the house was being shown and provide a workplace for my husband who works from home and we had thought it would take weeks or even months our house to sell.)

Turns out that finding a house in Collin County was not going to be easy. I spent weeks with a realtor, looking at more than 70 houses we would happily have purchased (but they all ended up being sold just ahead of our quickly provided offer.) The realtor was beginning to really dislike taking me out as it seemed to be a doomed enterprise.

While we were venturing to and fro around Plano, I kept seeing a church that really spoke to my spirit. As we passed it, yet again, one day, I asked the realtor if we could look in the neighborhood we were in. She told me that I wouldn’t like it.

I was puzzled by her response as I didn’t feel she knew me well enough to make such a statement. Then I recalled a conversation we had had about a local builder who had done such a poor job on building their houses that many of the owners were suing them. I figured that was what she meant and put the thoughts of both the neighborhood and the church out of my mind.

I was determined to be very involved with the church we ended up at after this move and, for some reason, that equaled living close by in my mind. I don’t know why because I had never lived close to a church I had attended in the past.

We ended up buying a larger house than I had envisioned which was located in a city next to Plano rather than in Plano itself. Still, I missed the thought of that church and asked my daughter what was wrong with the neighborhood there. She told me not a thing. It was just a little older and a little less expensive. That made sense as our realtor wasn’t too pleased with our final choice (which my daughter had located) as it was considerably less expensive than the houses she had been showing us. Still, over the years since, when we passed by the church in Plano, I would still feel the same longing and the pull of my heart.

However, as I thought we had to live close to our new church, I started looking for other churches and found one almost on our doorstep. Each time we would pass that church, I would suggest to my husband that we start attending it. He would agree but we never got around to it. It was like we had amnesia every Sunday morning. This went on for five years! We were essentially unchurched except for the programs we watched on TV.

My daughter switched churches the year I became ill. She invited us to try her new church as she thought we would enjoy it. We agreed and planned to visit but, unfortunately, two surgeries in a row got in the way of my leaving the house. Then I started having episodes of vertigo and became more than a little afraid of leaving the house on the chance I would have one while out.

Then, out of the blue, I was hospitalized with severe pneumonia and low oxygen readings. As I began to recover a bit, a real regret that I had was that I had not attended my daughter’s church with our grandchildren. I told her so and she informed me that her church had live streaming of their Sunday services. I asked her to send my husband a link and we would watch.

When my husband brought the link up on our Apple TV, I about fell out of my chair. I told him excitedly, “That’s the church I wanted to go to. The one in Plano!” He had no idea what I was talking about. I tried reminding him about the church that had drawn at my heart. It took a ten minute discussion to discover that I had never told him about this church. I had only mentioned the church that was close by. That week we watched our first service and have been faithful attendees ever since.

As I write this, we have yet to physically attend a service at Chase Oaks Church (due to my current need to avoid viruses, etc. while the country struggles through the horrible ‘flu season of 2017-2018.) Even so, we feel as if we are members already. Their live online ministry allows us to be a part of the service as if we were there.

The church’s online outreach is growing as I write this post. My husband and I already know that we have a heart for this area of the church. I think of people like me, who temporarily can’t attend for whatever reason, those who can’t leave their homes at all, those who live too far away to attend, and especially those who live in countries and areas where being a Christian or attending a service could mean jail time or even a death sentence.

If you are interested in hearing the Word spoken through this group of pastors, here is the link to the Live portion of their website:

Chase Oaks Live

Here is their sermon archive:

Chase Oaks Sermon Archive

Here is their website which links to explanations of their core beliefs and outreach services:

Chase Oaks Church, Plano TX

There are times in my life when I have known beyond a doubt that God has led me to a certain point and place. This is one of those times. For whatever reason He has for my husband and I to be there, we know that God has led us to this the church. From the first sermon, each message seems to have written specifically for us at exactly this point in our lives.

While my desire to be at this church had been in my mind all along, it took a major, life-changing event to bring me to attending it. If I had not become so ill, who knows if I would ever have gone on my own? A lesson learned here is to listen to God when He speaks to your heart and go to the path He has placed ahead of you.

Isaiah 48:17 This is what the LORD says — your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.”