Hope Victorious

Dates are a big deal to me; I mark a lot of dates on my calendar year after year.   Not just birthdays and anniversaries, but other significant dates as well.   Yesterday, September 17 th , for example is a BIG date for us.   Yesterday marks the 9 th year anniversary of the day we found out that we were pregnant with our first son!   It was the day I began to live out the dream I’d carried for years of being a mom! Phil and I met in the fall of 1992 at Sonoma State.   I was a freshman and he had just graduated and was on staff with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.   We became good friends.   The story that chronicles our relationship turning from friendship to romantic is long and complex.   Phil loves telling the story, but remember every story has two sides and both should be heard….to be fair!    But during the summer of 1994 we began dating.   Phil was off staff by then and was pursuing overseas missions. I don’t hav...

This is one of those strange prophetic happenings that you could try to dismiss as a bizarre coincidence…but that would require more radical faith than believing that it did indeed mean something! Last Wednesday a brown dove sat on my doorstep for about 3 hours!   I was leaving for a doctor’s appointment when I saw a basket on the front porch.   When I reached for the basket I saw a bird sitting on the threshold of the door.   My hand was less than a foot from it, and it just sat there staring at me.   I stood there for a while….feeling like this was important…it meant something, but what?!    It was moving slightly, wasn’t dead, just so calm.   My son  yelled from the van, we needed to go, but I didn’t want to leave!   As we drove away I was aware of a knowing deep in me that the bird would be right there when we got home. The appointment went long and almost 2 hours had passed when we drove back up our driveway.   The bird wa...

The worship song “From the Inside Out” by Hillsong has been the theme of my time with God during this season.   I had a powerful revelation as a result of these lyrics on Wednesday:   “Everlasting, your light will shine when all else fades.   Never ending, your glory goes beyond all fame…..”   it is a song of surrendering all to worship and praise God.   I realized that in the midst of so many unanswered questions, fears, and uncertainties there were things I was sure of.   BIG things!   In a profound moment of clarity I saw my life as a book written from the day of my conception until the day of death ….I realized that it exists, God sees my life in its fullness.   And the truth hit me that I know some of what is written on the final page of my book.   I know the beginning of the book, the middle is important – it’s my life, I’m living it and so much is yet to be written, but there are some things that are even more certain than the unkn...