Jackson's Prayer Last Night:

Dear Jesus, 

Thank you for everything in the world. Thank you for dying on the cross. Thank you for everything that you made EXCEPT for bugs that bite! 

Amen

A New Ring and Reminder

My wonderful husband took me out a few weeks ago for a big surprise date. On that date, while sitting at The Melting Pot, I took a rose off our cheesecake and found a beautiful ring in it that I have had my eye on for awhile. I was speechless (very unusual for me).  I had no idea!  I was so excited.

The only problem is that it is a little too big for me and I have yet to get it sized. Really, I just don't want to take it off. So I got me some scotch tape and wrapped the back of the ring so it would fit! Clever, I know. I was speaking at a Mother's Day dinner last weekend and I had that tape around my ring. I kept playing with it at the dinner table. It is like God spoke to me right there. Kasey, you are like that ring. You might be all dressed up and shiny tonight but don't you forget who taped you up. It is "He" who healed my wounds, it is "He" who restored my life! It is HE who is able to take the "foolish things of this world" (ME) and "confound the wise."

I got an email from a dear friend and she ended her email with this . . . 
"Little is much in HIS hands!"

1 Samuel 10:6 "Then the Spirit of the Lord will rush upon you, and you will prophesy with them and be turned into another
man."
This passage is when Saul is being anointed king over Israel and it just jumped off the page for me this morning. I have been talking with a sweet girl who heard my testimony and is struggling. Actually, at the end of her e-mail she signed it "struggling well." I loved that. Oh yes, we are going to struggle in this life but let's struggle well. Let's do what Job did and cry out to our God with our questions and doubts and fears. But like Job, don't stop there. Don't stop with the questions for God. Stop, and let God ask you some questions of His own. What do those questions reveal? The questions that God asked Job revealed his mighty power. They showed Job that He was in control! He had it all handled. We also know through Jeremiah 29:11 that God's plans for us are for our good and not evil, plans for a hope and a future. We must know this - that God is mighty and in control (sovereign) but that He is good and His plans for us are good! We must know both! If you don't believe that today, choose to believe that and pray daily for God to show you that He is both Mighty and Good!

How do we be that person that God wants us to be? I think I found the key here in 1 Samuel 10, "the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him and turned him into another man." (my shortened version) We can't be anything other than our fleshly nature until we let the Spirit have full control of our lives. Since Jesus came, we were given the gift of the Holy Spirit for those who know and believe in Him. We have that Spirit. Let's use it today to turn us into another woman, one who walks worthy of the calling we are here for!

A Turn Around

Picture a 19 year old girl, pregnant, unwed and scared to death. She walks into a church which is hard for her to do. She grew up in church, her dad was a pastor for crying out loud. It really was the last place she wanted to be but knew it was where she needed to be. She had dreaded church most of her life, someone was always mad at her dad, mad at her, never ever seemed like a safe place to go and experience love. When you are a pastors kid, church just isn't the same - as much as my parents tried to protect me from that side of it - I knew what was going on and when I didn't know, I tried to figure it out. So, needless to say, church was the last place I wanted to be. But this time, I was no longer the pastors daughter at this church, just a pregnant college girl! What a scene I must have made. But what I found there was a group of ladies and a pastor that loved me anyway! I grew and was taught to study my Bible (precepts) and was discipled by a dear older woman!


13 years later: I walked through those same doors Thursday night only this time to teach a Ladies Night Out the church was having. Talk about a turn around. What an amazing God we serve. He took a bitter, pregnant 19 year old college student and through the change that only Jesus can do in a life, I can now tell of the goodness of the Lord. Jesus tells the man he had healed from a demon in Luke 8:39 to "Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you."


I am beginning to see over and over again, in my life and many others, God's story of Redemption. He proves it again and again. He came here to save the lost and the sinners, of which I was the greatest. But He doesn't stop there, He restores our lives and changes us and then we go out and "declare how much God has done for us."