Yay, God!

What a week! Food pantry, a board meeting, and a conference all in a few short days! My mind is so full of different thoughts that it's hard to try to come up with words to type. But, it has been a good week. I have seen God's hand working in so many different situations. It is wonderful!


We have a success story for the week... One of the men from one of the sober living houses "graduated" this week! He qualified for housing and now has his own apartment. He has been sober for quite some time and is continually involving himself at church and also at LLM. His story with us began under a tree. Now he is free from addiction and living back under a roof and praising God all the way. God is good! (Now you say, "All the time!") All the time... (uh hem, "God is good!") It was a pretty great thing to experience during my second week of working at LLM. When you see that, it shows you a small glimpse of why you are there.


On the new building... Still working on getting in there. The main thing right now is getting the floor finished in the new thrift store area so that we can get all of that moved in. You can check out all the ways to help on the "volunteer opportunities" tab.


I came upon a verse this week that I shared on my facebook wall, but also wanted to include it here. It has really stuck with me this week as I went about life.

"Live a lover's life, circumspect and exemplary, a life Jesus will be proud of: bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God." Phillipians 1:11

I smiled when I read it because it reinforced a new thing I have been trying to do... All my life, if something worked out for good, I would say, "Yeah, it worked out perfectly," or, "Things are going well." Lately, I have been trying to get into the habit of saying, "It was definitely a 'God' thing," or "God has blessed me with..." I'm not trying to brag, like, "Oh, I talk about God, bloo bee dee..." Instead, I am trying to express the joy of reading scripture and knowing that God is speaking directly to us through it. My new passion has been to get others excited about God and what he is doing, "...getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God." I read that and thought, that's it! 

I also like the part that says, "a life Jesus will be proud of." I remember when I was a kid, I loved making my parents proud. They were (and still are) awesome parents, and often made a point to tell me and my sister how proud they were of us. I strived to do well just so that I would make them proud. When I read this, I thought, "I want to make Jesus proud." I know that that is a tall order, but I also know that if before every decision I make, I ask myself if it would make Jesus proud, I would make much better decisions! Even smaller ones that don't have a huge impact, but still matter, especially to God. I think our decisions show what is in our hearts. 

Please continue to pray for LLM as big decisions are being made and as God leads us down a new and exciting path. It's a lot of work, but will be well worth it. And as always, and I am excited to see what wonderful new things God will do through LLM as long as we obey and trust him!