For His Service

Elaine  and Ray Russell and Rachel The picture above is of my mom and dad when they were first married. Now in 2013, they are celebrating 50 years of marriage this year.  They were not believers at the time when they got married, but God..even then... had them model devotion and commitment to me and my two sisters.  After 23 years of marriage, I want a full, Christ filled marriage for all of my family and friends.  I see the importance of the younger women learning from the older women. Titus 2  says "Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the Word of God." Titus 2:3-5 We need to know that certain struggles are normal. We need to know...

So...the last couple of weeks I have been struggling.  When you are in a broken world, with other broken people, you...in your own brokeness, just struggles sometimes to move in the right direction. I have learned that I can not fix myself, but I can delay the "fixing" by TRYING to fix myself... OR I can just go to HIM.   ..which is the only right way anyway.  So, it comes down to trust (faith) ...again... "[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside...

I had a dream that I talked to Jesus over the phone.  Yeah, yeah..it sounds like another crazy Rachel dream...but it was a comforting dream.  I dreamt that the phone rang and I picked it up and Jesus appeared.  He looked like an outline of a man ...made out of many brilliant colors.  Bright Whites...Bright Blues..Bright Yellows.  I just had one question for Jesus.  "Jesus, am I yours? "   He nodded his head yes and reached out to touch my face.   There is more to the dream...but that is the part I do not want to forget. John 1 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, [ c ] nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became...