One of the best things about LifeWay’s Festivals of Marriage is that we get to take friends with us, we get to see old friends that transcend time and space, and we get to make new friends throughout the course of the weekend.

We took a couple from our home church, Bernie and Anita Tucker, to help us run our resource table and to get a wonderful weekend to enjoy each other. They are such special friends of our’s and we love them dearly.

We also got to catch up with Travis Cottrell and his wife Angela and their awesome team of worship leaders: Seth and Nirva Ready, and Julie Goss. They can flat out sing, and it is so evident that the Lord’s anointing is on them as they lead folks in worship….truly an awesome experience.

And then there was Wayne and Susan Elmore, dear friends from Sumter, SC. We love them and their faith family back in Sumter and it was such a joy to see them. I am confident that God will use them in wonderful ways in the future to make an eternal impact for His Kingdom.

And finally, we made such new friends and are excited about what God will do by bringing us together! If you took pictures with us, please email them to us so we can post them! And, let us know what you thought about the weekend and what God did as a results of your time at Festivals of Marriage. You can encourage another by testifying of God’s goodness to you over the weekend. So tell us your story……it needs to be heard!

This past weekend, Dale and I had the wonderful privilege of keynoting LifeWay’s Festivals of Marriage in Ridgecrest, NC. Not only is it a beautiful place, it is also a place where the Lord shows up and does mighty things as we simply listen to and for His voice and follow His lead.

The theme this year was balance, with the idea that if we follow Jesus’ teaching from Matthew 6:33 to seek first to follow the way things are done in His Kingdom down here on earth and He will take care of all the things you worry about that get you off balance.

Well, Dale and I took it down the road of 3 specifics toxins that tend to get our marriage relationships off balance so quickly: unreliable assumptions, unresolved confrontations, and unrealistic expectations with their antidotes being faith, hope, and love. With special help from Mark and Christine Satterfield, we had these awesome toxious trash cans on stage that represented our marriages when overtaken by our 3 relational toxins…..it was really a great visual to see us throw trash (anger, verbal accusations, shame, rejection, etc) in our marriage cans and then to be able to “dump” them out in forgiveness, the greatest aspect of love.

Here’s a pic of us with the Satterfield’s in the trash cans!

Mark Satterfield has taken Festivals of Marriage to its next level in professionalism, quality, and depth. The workshop leaders are exceptional and have such a heart for marriages in this country. They are committed to encouraging couples however they can and it shows in their preparation and sacrifice throughout the weekend. Mark has thought of everything that will make this marriage weekend one that you and your spouse will never forget.

If it has been quite some time since you or your church have gone to Festivals of Marriage, I suggest that you consider returning. It truly is an awesome experience.

Since our Presidential race began, I have seen some things surface that are concerning to me. Through several turns of events in my life, I have received a renewed passion for patriotism, as I have recognized how closely knit patriotism is to my Christian walk.

As a home school mom, this year has involved me teaching my daughter American History. Being reminded again of how our country was founded and why, I was overwhelmed with gratitude and infused with greater allegiance to my country.

The majority of people set out to discover and relocate to the New World not just for any kind of religious freedom, but for Christianity! From Martin Luther’s posting of his 96 thesis, recanting the Catholics’ misinterpretation of the Bible, to the evangelistic heart of Johann Guttenberg, who invented a traveling printing press, so that the Bible could be better distributed, our history and discovery, of what we now call the United States of America, was a passionate desire to be able to freely live out the Bible, without condemnation or restriction.

As a Christian, a person who is learning to walk with God on a daily basis as His child and His disciple, I owe a debt of gratitude to those who persevered and withstood much persecution and affliction for the sake of forging forth to America. I owe a debt of gratitude to those who lost their lives as they fought diligently and selflessly to defend our Christian freedom.

So for me to say that I am a Christian and yet I am not a patriot is an absolute oxymoron. It just can’t be done, if you understand the true definition and context of being a patriot.

I came across a young lady who was boldly expressing, through the internet as well as vocally, her vehement unwillingness neither to wear the flag nor to salute it to show her allegiance to it. Yet, she also expressed that she was a serious, passionate believer in the Lord Jesus Christ! How can that be? The very reason that she gets to worship her Lord freely, with passion, is because people risked their lives so she could! What a kick in the gut to those who fought so hard for her! How dishonoring to the men and women who fought so hard to afford her this freedom!

Several weeks ago, I was asked to sing the National Anthem for our school football game.

I had to take a sobering look at the words I was singing:

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Many may not be aware that there are 3 more verses to this anthem:

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner! Oh long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more!
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And above all, don’t forget this last verse:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved home and the war’s desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Oh, may we as a people not forget the truth behind America….a united group of people who came together to follow Jesus and the precepts of His Word. May we come back together and quit wasting time fighting against each other, and fight together for the common good. May we recapture the true heart of patriotism, make it our goal to pass that down to the generations that follow, and go back to the Word of God to find our answers for our lives and future in America.

ROOTS

The other day, Cole had to go outside and cut the grass; so, I thought I would join him outside and clean up the flower beds. Because it had been left untouched for so long, I was blown away by the enormous amount of weeds that had taken over.

As I began my task of “de-weeding”, I had decided that this would be a simple task. But to my discovery and dismay, I realized that I was in for a rude awakening; for what I found became a moment with Almighty God as He revealed Himself through a simply ordinary circumstance in my day.

There was a huge amount of little clover-type weeds, and so I thought I’d start there, seeing that the evidence indicated a massive take-over of the flowerbed if left unattended. As I began to pull at the weeds, I found that there was not many roots at all, just a lot of spreading, so they were fairly easy to pull up and discard.

I proceeded next to the large, overgrown weeds that settled in one place and were growing up and out. Pulling on them, I found some roots had begun, which required some strength to get them up and out of the soil.

Next, I wondered upon some little beginnings of a weed, or so I thought. I gave them a tug only to find that the roots were deep, and very hard to detach from the ground. These required a bit more work, but with a little focused effort, I was able to break those nasty weeds free.

Finally, hidden away from the sunlight, in the corner, practically in a place that I may not otherwise have seen, I catch a glimpse of a “running” weed, kind of like the original clover-type I had seen earlier. So I think this would be an easy task to wrap up the day. But unlike any of the other weeds, as I began to pull up the weeds, the “pull” became a “yank” that became a “fight”. Suddenly, I notice that I am pulling up mulch and am unearthing an underground root system that stretches throughout my whole flowerbed. I was shocked, to say the least. By all appearances, this was a seemingly easily-uprooted weed. In reality, its roots had overtaken every inch of my flowerbed.

How sweetly the Lord whispered to me: “My child, recently, you have allowed the enemy to scatter a lie into your heart and it is seeking to consume you. Lots of evidence by your responses, but the roots have not yet had time to take hold. Rid yourself of this before it overtakes you.

Also, there are a few places in your heart that you have not allowed Me to have total access nor control. Would you yield those to Me and let My power remove them and restore you?

We also have some work to do together to get some of these other lies, requiring a little more strength to get them out, uprooted, because they’ve been in your heart for a while. You need My strength to deal with those. You can’t handle these alone, so quit trying. And finally, those things that you’ve kept hidden for so long, those lies that the enemy has tortured you with for years; they have spread into every area of your life and have effected every relationship in your life. Without you being aware, these lies have sabotaged your relationships and are seeking to cause you to implode. Let Me rip those out and replace my Truth within you. You abide in Me as we continue to pull up these invasive lies that have gained too much territory over the years. Don’t short-change the process for a quick fix. These will take some time. But it is precious time to Me, because it assures Me that we will get to spend some wonderful time together, and I can hardly wait!

This is the reason I came to You; to save your heart. I know that I have revealed to you a lot, my child. It has left some places “unearthed” within your heart. Let Me pour My deep love and truth into those places and heal you. Again, it’s why I came. And as we begin to till up and clean out the flowerbed of your heart, we will begin making room for new, healthy “truth seeds” to be planted. These seeds will take deep root, giving you security, stability, and confident strength. Then, you’ll be bearing much fruit as my glory is displayed beautifully and uniquely through you. You’ll finally feel so happy and so content and so free because you will be fulfilling the very purpose for which I created you: to live in the glory I gave you at creation as I made you in My image. Hey, and when you finish today, how about penning our conversation on paper for Cole, and the generations beyond him, to read. They’ll need this when their “de-weeding” begins.”