Pruning

I was outside today trimming a HUGE out-of-control ornamental grass that grows in our front yard.  Those who drive past our house know exactly what I am talking about.  ;)

I forgot to cut it back last year like I do every fall and what the plant had become this Spring is really unexplainable.   It was just huge stalks of dead leaves and barely any new growth was able to make it through.  I had to cut back the big huge tall dead stalks and then get down to the middle of the plant and rake out all the dead and rotted (from all of the rain) dead grass that had become stuck and tangled up in the plant.   

WOW - is this not exactly how God works on us if we allow him?    We often forget to run to our Savior for confession and repentance and eventually get covered up in our sin to the point that we are just one big stuck and tangled mess with nothing "living" growing from our lives.  So, my experience is that we eventually get bogged down by all the dead growth in our life, which produces nothing and give us no joy, and realize that we must do some personal pruning in order to truly live again - to produce the fruits that God would have us produce.   God is so faithful to prune us if we honestly go to Him with a realization of our sin, see the sin for what it is and bring it to His feet, lay it down and ask him "Lord, prune me."    Not that this has every been an enjoyable experience in my life - no, in fact, it is painful, but on the other side of it, God brings us joy, peace and is then able to work through us to give us new green growth!   

Love to you all and I would ask for your prayers for our upcoming trip to South Dakota in 10 days.  

Melissa

Have a great Memorial Day weekend!

Can you believe the year is almost halfway over???  Time seems to fly by these days.  

Want to wish all a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend.   We are headed to Nashville for a couple of days to celebrate Hudson's 2nd birthday and to do a little swimming.   Bring on the sun!

Turn up the Music

The Greatest Commandment

²⁸  One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"  ²⁹  "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.³⁰Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.'  ³¹  The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."   Mark 12: 28-31

Well, folks, it doesn't get much clearer than that.  The greatest commandment of ALL is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul.   After that, we are to love our neighbors (friends, family, all......).  Bottom line - there it is.  The greatest commandment from God to his followers.

Here is my question to you - if you have given your life over to Christ and professed belief in him, are you following this commandment?  Are you loving the Lord with everything you have?   ALL of your heart, mind and soul?   My friends, we are commanded to - it is not a suggestion.   And guess what?  God commands this to us for our own good.  For you see, after giving him ALL of ourselves, we are in a position of humility, love and obedience for him to bless us and show His favor to us.   I encourage you this day, week, weekend, whenever, to go the Lord and confess any areas where you are not loving Him with everything you have.  I know that I need to continually ask the Lord where I can be loving Him more.   Then, let's commit to making some steps to spending more time in His Word and in prayer.   He will take care of the rest.  All we have to do is be willing and He will empower you.  Then we can begin living the abundant life He came to give! 

It All Comes Down to Love

I am sure that most of us are probably very familiar with this passage of Scripture, but today I wanted to introduce it out of "The Message". Hopefully, it will stand out to you in a fresh way and define more clearly the love God calls us to.  


   Love never gives up.
   Love cares more for others than for self.
   Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
   Love doesn't strut,
   Doesn't have a swelled head,
   Doesn't force itself on others,
   Isn't always "me first,"
   Doesn't fly off the handle,
   Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
   Doesn't revel when others grovel,
   Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
   Puts up with anything,
   Trusts God always,
   Always looks for the best,
   Never looks back,
   But keeps going to the end.    (from I Corinthians 13)


I know that personally there are a few of these statements about love that I am not living out daily nor truthfully living out in my heart.  Do I really try to "put up with anything"?   Am I pushing forward and "not looking back".   It seems, I struggle the hardest with these things in my marriage and family life.   The people whom I really do love the most don't seem to get these attributes of love shown to them outwardly every day.   


Let's read these words, pray for the Lord to humble us, cleanse our hearts and help us put into action the love the Lord wants us to show to "everyone", yes even when those who are on our very last nerve!  :)     "Lord, I pray that I look deep into the Scriptures for your instruction on how to love people today and Lore, please help me put it into practice.   Amen."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA!

12 years ago today Miss Emma Elizabeth Brown came into this world.  Happy Birthday to my baby girl!  I am so proud of her and can't wait to see the young lady she becomes.  She is quiet and thoughtful by nature, but very smart and so beautiful.   I am so thankful for her and hope today is the best 12th birthday EVER!   And guess what, she even cleaned her room for 4 hours last night to prepare for her slumber party!  For anyone that knows Emma, that is HUGE!  Way to go girl!

Pine Ridge Indian Reservation Mission 2010

Our family will be serving this year on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. We travel with a group out of people from Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. This will be our second year serving and just as we did in 2008 we are raising money for our travel expenses to the Rez and this year also car rental, as Chris' new company vehicle will not accomodate our needs. I have been asked to direct the VBS this year and will be having to carry supplies with me also. If we have any money left over from what we raise (hopefully), we will be leaving that with Pastor John Lovelace to use as winter propane money for the people on the Rez. They suffer very cold winters there. We will be heading out on June 10th for the 20+ hour drive and then returning on the 18th. We ask for your prayers for safe travel, guidance in my VBS role, and that God use our family to plant a seed of faith while we are there.

If you feel led to help us with travel expenses and the cost of the mission trip, please mail any contributions to:

Winchester Cumberland Presybterian Church
200 2nd Avenue NW
Winchester, Tennessee 37398

Note on your check that the contribution is for Brown Family Mission Trip and your donation will be tax deductible.

Our church will also be taking up a love offering on May 23rd.


Here is some information about the community we will be serving (third world country statistics - hidden away in the land of plenty):

* Median income is $2,600 per year with 85% to 95% unemployment
* Infant mortality rate 300% higher than the U.S. national average
* Diabetes and Tuberculosis rates 800% higher t than the U.S. national average
* Elderly die each winter from hypothermia (freezing)
* At least 60% of the homes are severely substandard, without water, electricity, adequate insulation, and sewage systems
* School drop-out rate is 70%
* Recent reports state the average life expectancy is 45 years old while other reports state that it is 48 years old for men and 52 years old for women.
* With either set of figures, that's the shortest life expectancy for any community in the Western Hemisphere outside Haiti, according to The Wall Street Journal.
* And the list goes on and on….

How He Loves Us

I am sitting here with Jacob at my office and he is playing a song called "How He Loves Us" by David Crowder Band. My son is such a blessing to me. Thought I would share....

David Crowder*Band - "How He Loves" OFFICIAL Music Video

My Long and Winding Road

Have you ever felt completely at a loss as to where your life was headed? Yeah, me too. As a matter of fact - right now. Right now as I sit and type I have no idea where the Lord is leading me. I am sure that he is calling me out more and more in faith to follow Him to a different place. I know that He is calling me to be used to reach people, but I don't know where that place is. Really, I have no clue. There are several options that have made themselves available and many roads that I could go down, but I don't know which one.


And strangely enough, I am okay with that. There are many things going on in our lives right now with my feelings of going into ministry/missions, etc. and there also many outside circumstances occuring within our spiritual community that leave me confused and doubtful at times. But, I know that I serve an incredible God and that He has a plan. I have so many options ahead of me right now and I am in deep prayer over which way to turn - where He wants me to serve and what is best for my family. And the best thing is that I know He will answer - beyond a shadow of a doubt, I know that.


We are also winding up the school year - Jacob's homeschooling is almost complete, the girls are finishing up a ton of projects and we are anxiously awaiting summer break! We head out to South Dakota on June 10th to serve the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and then after we return I plan on getting two of my classes finished before we launch into another school year.


Two nights ago, the Lord gave me a Scripture and I will end my post with it. I pray that as we each face our own struggles and/or upcoming decisions, we will think about the wisdom God gives to us to make it through those times.

James 3:17-18 (New Living Translation)

17 But the wisdom from above is first of all pure. It is also peace loving, gentle at all times, and willing to yield to others. It is full of mercy and good deeds. It shows no favoritism and is always sincere.
18 And those who are peacemakers will plant seeds of peace and reap a harvest of righteousness.

My Nights These Days

The Lord has been waking me up about this time every night for awhile and I know that I meant to take the time to go before Him in prayer. That I am to serve in a ministry is decided (this was a long process).

Which particular area of ministry is not. What city this ministry is to be in is not. Whether it is to be a "family" ministry (as in all of us serving together) has not. Many unanswered questions.....but this I know, in the stillness of the night my God is in control. He knows the outcome. He knows the end result and He is the one doing the whole thing anyways. For you see he is "doing a new thing" in me.

I ask that you please partner with me in prayer as I position myself before the Lord to hear His voice? My prayer at this point is simple - "Lord, please show me." Amen.

Proverbs 1:5 - Let the wise listen and add to their learning, and let the discerning get guidance.

So, I call on my prayerful friends, my prayer warriors - whether they be from Facebook, blog posts or my "reality of day to day living" and ask you to lift me in prayer that He show me the way and then give me the eyes to see it and receive it! Love to you all each and everyone one!Melissa

Had to Share.....

We lived in the Nashville area for 9 years and let me tell you this article hits the nail on the head! We love you Nashville and you are in our prayers!

We Are Nashville
By Patten Fuqua
Published: May 4, 2010

Allow me a moment to step away from the usual voice of this website. What I am about to write has absolutely nothing to do with hockey. If you live outside of Nashville, you may not be aware, but our city was hit by a 500-year flood over the last few days. The national news coverage gave us 15 minutes, but went back to focusing on a failed car bomb and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While both are clearly important stories, was that any reason to ignore our story? It may not be as terror-sexy as a failed car bomb or as eco-sexy as an oil spill, but that’s no reason to be ignored.

The Cumberland River crested at its highest level in over 80 years. Nashville had its highest rainfall totals since records began. People drowned. Billions of dollars in damage occurred. It is the single largest disaster to hit Middle Tennessee since the Civil War. And yet…no one knows about it.

Does it really matter? Eventually, it will…as I mentioned, there are billions of dollars in damage. It seems bizarre that no one seems to be aware that we just experienced what is quite possibly the costliest non-hurricane disaster in American history. The funds to rebuild will have to come from somewhere, which is why people need to know. It’s hard to believe that we will receive much relief if there isn’t a perception that we need it.

But let’s look at the other side of the coin for a moment. A large part of the reason that we are being ignored is because of who we are. Think about that for just a second. Did you hear about looting? Did you hear about crime sprees? No…you didn’t. You heard about people pulling their neighbors off of rooftops. You saw a group of people trying to move two horses to higher ground. No…we didn’t loot. Our biggest warning was, “Don’t play in the floodwater.” When you think about it…that speaks a lot for our city. A large portion of why we were being ignored was that we weren’t doing anything to draw attention to ourselves. We were handling it on our own.
Some will be quick to find fault in the way rescue operations were handled, but the fact of the matter is that the catastrophe could not have been prevented and it is simply ignorant beyond all reason to suggest otherwise. It is a flood. It was caused by rain. You can try to find a face to stick this tragedy to, but you’ll be wrong.

Parts of Nashville that could never even conceivably be underwater were underwater. Some of them still are. Opry Mills and the Opryland Hotel are, for all intents and purposes, destroyed. People died sitting in standstill traffic on the Interstate. We saw boats going down West End. And, of course, we all saw the surreal image of the portable building from Lighthouse Christian floating into traffic and being destroyed when cars were knocked into it. I’m still having trouble comprehending all of it.

And yet…life will go on. We’ll go back to work, to school, to our lives…and we’ll carry on. In a little over a month, I’ll be on this website talking about the draft. In October, we’ll be discussing the new Predators’ season with nary a thought of these past few days. But in a way, they changed everyone in this town. We now know that that it can happen to us…but also know that we can handle it.

Because we are Nashville.

http://www.section303.com/we-are-nashville-4366

Melissa's Musings on Avatar

I loved Avatar and let me tell you why! I want an Avatar machine. I am sure there is a technical word for that machine which I don't know, but wouldn't it be so cool to have one that was customized for Christians? I would wake up every morning, put my sinful natured self into the machine, push a buttong which would appropriately read "DIE TO SELF", shut myself up in the machine, relax, close my eyes and live just like Christ wanted me to live all day long. For you see, that is what we are called to do and boy is it hard!

Romans 8: 6-8 (from The Message) tell us:

"Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored."

So until the machine is invented that I can immediately climb into every morning and die to myself, I will just start my morning as usual praying:

"Lord, help me to die to myself today. Put aside my selfish intentions, habits, behaviors and attitude. Help me to be more like you and less like myself every day! In Jesus name, Amen."