I love the fact that here in the States our holiday season begins with a Thanksgiving! It just seems right somehow that celebration should begin with a “Thank You!”
Wherever you are at, whatever you are facing look up! Even in our most desperate hour there is power in recognizing God is with us through thanks!
May you be overwhelmed with a sense of His presence as we march forward to the celebration of Jesus’ birth!
To all my friends in the U.S. Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you Jesus and thank you Jonathan at 237
Blessed http://237blessed.wordpress.com/ for nominating me for The King of Kings Friendship Blogger Award! As the creators of this award at http://freedomborn.wordpress.com/2011/12/15/the-king-of-kings-friendship-award/ say this is more of a personal blessing than an award. I choose to receive it as both! 🙂
In my prayer and planning times God has impressed on me that this will be a “year of doubling”. One of the goals God has placed in my heart is to double the readership of “Reinventing the We’ll”. I believe that these nominations are a blessing God will use to open doors towards that goal of greater ministry in the blogosphere!
Many years ago God impressed on me the need to focus on building connections between people in the body of Christ. I never dreamed when I began blogging that I would “meet” so many wonderful brothers and sister. I am most blessed at this occasion to nominate a few of you wonderful co-laborers for this award!
http://drusillamott.wordpress.com/ One of my new reads. Her Inspirational fiction is great!
http://iftodaywehear.wordpress.com/ You probably already know her. She is quite famous and quite deserving of this honor!
And of course
http://tonirand.wordpress.com/ Thanks Ann for all you do!
Be blessed dear readers. See you tomorrow! 🙂
I really have to praise God! He has seen fit to allow me another opportunity for reward. I mentioned a few weeks ago that Deb from Two Minutes of Grace nominated me for the Versatile blogger award. At the same time she nominated me for the 7×7 Link Award and I am just now getting around to publicly receiving it. Thanks so much Deb. To you all you faithful readers out there please check out Deb’s words at http://twominutesofgrace.wordpress.com/. Now onto the requirements of the reward:
Name seven unusual things about yourself:
1. I can quote the entire Green Lantern oath: “In brightest day in darkest night no evil shall escape my sight. Let those who worship evil’s might beware my power Green Lantern’s light!”
2. I am a scyfy junky.
3. I am a Pentecostal Christian which I guess makes most people think I am unusual because I believe in the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit including speaking in tongues.
4. I play the flute
5. I play the didgeridoo (badly)
6. I often read 7 or 8 books at a time.
7. I have preached the gospel in three countries so far.
the Second Requirement is that I give you seven of my “best” blogs in various categories:
Most Beautiful: https://jelillie.wordpress.com/2010/07/11/dance-in-the-rain/
Most Helpful: I did a series on I Corinthians 13 called “Ferocious” https://jelillie.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/ferocious/ This is the first of the posts.
Most Popular: That’s Easy. https://jelillie.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/the-twelve-ways-of-fall/ this one was freshly pressed and got over 1000 hits.
Most Controversial: https://jelillie.wordpress.com/2011/07/20/regret-the-good-school-marm/
Most Surprisingly Successful: Again “The Twelve Ways of Fall” from most popular. Still can’t believe it even got pressed.
Most Underrated: Pastor Wrinkles: Chapter Charts. People are afraid of ’em I think.
Most Pride Worthy: A series again called “You Choose the View” https://jelillie.wordpress.com/2011/08/13/you-choose-the-view/
Finally I need to nominate seven bloggers for the same award. And the nominees are:
1. Rachel at http://stirringthedeep.com/
2. Angela at http://meetingintheclouds.wordpress.com/
3. Charles at http://charleslmashburn.wordpress.com/
4. Melody at http://melodygodfred.com/
5. Patricia at http://patriciawonders.wordpress.com/
6. http://todayithink.wordpress.com/
7. Carrie at http://blog.carriemumford.com/
Thanks again Deb!
Let me start by thanking all of you who prayed: for me, my family, and the church here in New England through Hurricane Irene. God was merciful to us!
Y’know, I believe that when we pray, our starting place is not requesting but abiding. For Jesus said, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. ” John 15:7
For this reason I seldom ask God for something, until I have what I sense is His mind on the situation. I must first spend time in His presence and get His command for the particular situation that concerns me. Then and only then can I pray in faith believing.
When I knew Irene was coming up the East Coast I was mindful of the fact that perhaps our turn had come to experience the wrath of God. I don’t mean to sound bleak but I do believe our nation, as disobedient as it has been, is beginning to experience God’s judgment. Massachusetts certainly has no ground to stand on to say we should be exempt from what the rest of the country is experiencing. So as the storm approached I knew we
could really be in for it.
I began by asking God what He wanted for me out of this situation. Was He saying this was it? Was He saying to me “Head for the hills?”
I didn’t get the sense that this was going to bring about destruction for me or my household. I felt the Spirit telling me to pray around the borders of my house seven times in the Spirit, a seven-fold hedge. On Friday I did just that. I started by the blackberry hedge and began to sing around my mother’s property in tongues. The first time around I sensed I was praying for the trees to stand. The second, I was praying for the ground to drink deeply of the rising waters. I prayed over a dead tree that if it fell it would fall straight down and not come near the house. I prayed that no flood would come to destroy. I asked that the gardens would be spared. I prayed over the transformer at the corner of our property. I prayed a shield of Holy Ghost protection over the walls of the house and the vehicles. I asked God to use the storm to cleanse the land of pestilence. I asked God to prosper us. On Saturday a group of us prayed over the church.
Early Sunday morning the storm arrived.
The rains fell thick and heavy as I walked the dogs at 6 A.M.. We were soaked to the skin in under a minute. The vernal brook that wraps around our house quickly swelled . Debris washed down from the upper pond. By 7 A.M. the brook had swollen to the top of its banks.
By 8 it had risen out of its borders and had taken command of the woods and back yard. It poured over the culvert below our house and into the street flooding our basement and those of our neighbors around the corner. By 9 we had eight inches of water in our cellar and could swim in our backyard.
My mother, my sister and I headed to the cellar and began to bail in order to keep the furnace from being submerged. We bailed for a while and then called the town barn to ask them to come clean the culvert.
A beech tree loosened by the swelling waters fell over directly between the apple and plum-tree and didn’t break either!
The storm winds blew through the night and knocked over one more tree by the brook. The waters receded quickly once the town came and cleared the debris out of the culvert. 
As I watched the news this morning, I realized how blessed we truly were here in Winchendon. God chose to spare us and answer our prayers. Not one of our fruit trees was damaged. The waters are gone and left no sign of the flood. We now have wood down for next winter and all we have to do is cut it up! And my mother has decided after a decade of haggling with her it is time to get a sump pump! As I see the footage of New York, New Jersey, and Carolina I realize His answer to me when I sought Him could have been far different. The pathway of protection was mine to walk in this instance. For that I am grateful. But I am also mindful that should my pathway have been different God would still have been with me and He would still have provided even if it had been through loss.
The Apology
Think me not unkind and rude,
That I walk alone in grove and glen;
I go to the god of the wood
To fetch his word to men.Tax not my sloth that I
Fold my arms beside the brook;
Each cloud that floated in the sky
Writes a letter in my book.Chide me not, laborious band,
For the idle flowers I brought;
Every aster in my hand
Goes home loaded with a thought.
There was never mystery,
But ’tis figured in the flowers,
Was never secret history,
But birds tell it in the bowers.One harvest from thy field
Homeward brought the oxen strong;
A second crop thine acres yield,
Which I gather in a song.Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am learning that my peace in the storm of life is determined in large part by the voice I choose to listen too.
In this storm God has been singing a sweet song in my ear almost continually. He sings against the darkness of my soul. He takes my breath away with beauty that reminds me that all of life is not dark.
He has made my feet to tread in pleasant places. But I must step out my front door to hear His song. He sings in the key of green, and red, and pink. His voice smells like roses and lilacs.
I hear Him singing from the high heavens and even from the dark dirt of the forest floor. His voice emanates from the grasses and swells from the branches of the trees.
So many have wondered how I can hold myself at peace in the storm. It’s because most times I don’t hear the rain. I hear Him and He tells me it will be all right.
He tells me like this
And like this:
And this:
When I hear the beauty of his song with my eyes, the dark voices that ravage my mind slip for at least a season into the abyss which spawned them.
How do you hear the song of God?
I am a Thanksgiving baby. This year my birthday is on Black Friday. But before I blow out my candles I want to give thanks. So Jesus here is one thank you for every year!
1. I thank You that before You formed me in the womb you knew me!
2. I thank You that you put me in a family that made room for my gifts even if they couldn’t understand them!
3. I thank You for putting me in a family that loves story and laughter! You knew I needed that!
4. I thank You for dying on the cross in my place to purchase my pardon!
5. I thank You for that You will complete the good work You have begun in me!
6. I thank You for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and for the gifts of power which You placed within me!
7. I thank You for the call to ministry!
8. I thank You for the wife You gave to me and our 23 years of marriage
9. I thank You for calling three of my children into ministry!
10. I thank You for calling my son Joe to church planting in Philadelphia!
11. I thank You for providing for my daughter Melanie’s internship in Jamaica!
12. I thank You for providing for my daughter Amanda’s Missions trip to Mali!
13. I thank You for calling my sister to missions in the Netherlands!
14. I thank You for allowing me to minister in the church I was saved in!
15. I thank You for allowing me another opportunity to minister to teens!
16. I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to write!
17. I thank You for the provision of a beautiful house!
18. I thank You for wonderful in-laws!
19. I thank You for healing Paul from cancer!
20. I thank You for healing Skyelees arm!
21. I thank You for making Bob cancer free!
22. I thank You for restoring David’s family over the last month!
23. I thank You for allowing me to lead worship!
24. I thank You for the gift of playing the piano!
25. I thank You for healing Cindy’s ganglion cyst!
26. I thank You for helping me finish the first draft of my novel!
27. I thank You that some day You will bring reconciliation between me and my son Cory!
28. I thank You that You have given me everything I need for life and godliness!
29. I thank You for Your Word!
30. I thank You for the Holy Spirit’s gift of making the Scripture understandable
31. I thank You that You are returning soon!
32. I thank You that You shall take me to Heaven in the rapture of the church!
33. I thank You that I have been made to rule and reign with Christ in the Thousand-Year-Reign!
32. I thank You that You are my Provider and that to this point You have helped me to pay my bills!
33. I thank You for allowing both my wife and I to spend time with our kids in Pennsylvania this fall!
34. I thank You for brining my daughters home for Thanksgiving!
35. I thank You helping my children to excel in college!
36. I thank You that all of my children are in church and pursuing relationship with you!
37. I thank You for a wonderful boss in Pastor Risto!
38. I thank You for a great work environment in Cornerstone Church!
39. I thank You for a wonderful group of people to minister too in the congregation at Cornerstone!
40. I thank You for the twenty guests we will have tomorrow for Thanksgiving!
41. I thank You that Thanksgiving dinner is prepped and ready to go!
42. I thank You for helping the youth group to raise over $4,000.00 for missions this year!
43. I thank You for 43 years of life in which to serve You!
Happy Thanksgiving Jesus!
What do you have to thanks Jesus for?
Reinventing the We'll 