Craig’s work has got me thinking, you maybe saying, “Oh no! Not again.” Well it’s true. Having grown up in the church and around the Christian community, I’ve seen The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, to borrow from the Clint Eastwood movie.

     Sometimes we come to Christ thinking that because we have excepted Christ’s work on the cross that that nullifies all the baggage we have in our lives. This is just not true. We have to let Christ start UXO work in our hearts and lives. Our minds are full of land mines just waiting to go off. Planted there by years of crafty work by our enemy, as well as by our selves and others around us.

     If you don’t believe me, just try to think of a situation where you did something, and then though where did that come from? I have at least one of those stories. It involved a kitchen, pudding and rage, that’s all I’m going to say about it, but when it happened it scared me, I didn’t know that I was capable of such a strong reaction. In reality I had just set off a land mine, that I didn’t know was there. And I believe that God is still working through the mess in my mind that triggered that reaction.

     Well what do we do about it? We don’t want to go around exploding and blowing up our lives. God tells us to confess our sins and he is faithful to forgive us and clean us up. So I pray and ask for forgiveness and then ask God to search my heart and deactivate the hidden things that are in my life. See God knows everything in and around you that can come against you. He knows the lies you and I believe. He knows the sins we have and struggle with every day. But we have to invite Him to remove them. We have to give Him room to work. And we have to listen to what He says or we will get hurt.

     Start your day by reading your Bible, pray that you will understand what you are reading and listen for what God is saying, and I believe in time you will see the things you need to have God deal with, the things He is asking you to do with His help and you will be able to start enjoying your life more and more….

Psalm 139 New King James Version (NKJV)

139 O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
2 You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
3 You [a]comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
4 For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
5 You have hedged me behind and before,
And laid Your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
It is high, I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Or where can I flee from Your presence?
8 If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in [c]hell, behold, You are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning,
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
10 Even there Your hand shall lead me,
And Your right hand shall hold me.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall [d]fall on me,”
Even the night shall be light about me;
12 Indeed, the darkness [e]shall not hide from You,
But the night shines as the day;
The darkness and the light are both alike to You.
13 For You formed my inward parts;
You [f]covered me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will praise You, for [g]I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
15 My [h]frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.
17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
18 If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.
19 Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God!
Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
20 For they speak against You wickedly;
your enemies take Your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate them, O Lord, who hate You?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with [k]perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
24 And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.  

     When God works there are always tests and trials. Test to see if we really believe that He is working in our lives and will do what He said and trials He allows to remind us that we have an enemy of our souls. We found our selves facing one of these situations almost as soon as we started on our way to Texas A&M from Arkansas.
 
     We left my Mom’s house on our way to Lake Ouachita State Park, where we were planing to stay for a week and then continue south from there. We discovered that we were out of propane and that we would need to refill it before we could fill the fridge. No big deal, we just needed to fine a gas station that did refills. So we drove keeping an eye out for a refill stop, but nothing came up. So Craig decided to just do an exchange. We pulled into a little gas station in the middle of nowhere, I took Israel (Our dog) for a walk and Craig went to get the propane exchanged.

     As I was heading back to the bus I could see that Craig was brushing off the bottom of the “new” propane tank as someone was trying to ask about the bus, when I got closer I looked just in time to see a big Black Widow spider come off the bottom of the tank. Craig squished it and got the tank in place and the man that was talking with him left.

As it turned out before Craig could get all the spiders off the tank one had bitten him on the arm. Having grown up with spiders I knew that Black Widow bites can be very bad, even life threatening in some cases. So I started praying that God would heal Craig’s arm, we treated it with first aid salves and things we had on hand, but we knew that we had nothing to really stop it’s effect.

     We left the gas station and no sooner had we left that we were pulled over by a AR state trooper as we had not removed our old Oregon license plate on  the front of the bus when we got Arizona ones, OOPS!. Well we got that sorted out but not before Craig told the officer that he had just been bitten by a black widow spider, to which she responded, “You need to go the ER, don’t you know you could die! At the least you could lose your arm!” This was not encouraging at all, though I’m sure its quite true, but we really were in the middle of nowhere, there was no ER and we didn’t have the money to pay for it if we were to go, so we kept praying.

     In less then half an hour you could see where the bite was, as it started to turn purple and grow in size. We had just enough coverage that I got a call out to my sister Sarah and asked her to pray as well. We had no choice but to keep going, so we did. We kept praying asking God to heal it, while watching to see how bad it would get. The purple stopped expanding at around 1 centimeter round and in three days we could not even tell that he had been bitten.

I know that God answered our prayers.

Psalm 71 New King James Version (NKJV)
God the Rock of Salvation
71 In You, O Lord, I put my trust;
Let me never be put to shame.
2 Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape;
Incline Your ear to me, and save me.
3 Be my [a]strong refuge,
To which I may resort continually;
You have given the commandment to save me,
For You are my rock and my fortress.
4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked,
Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man.
5 For You are my hope, O Lord God;
You are my trust from my youth.
6 By You I have been [b]upheld from birth;
You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb.
My praise shall be continually of You.
7 I have become as a wonder to many,
But You are my strong refuge.
8 Let my mouth be filled with Your praise
And with Your glory all the day.
9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
Do not forsake me when my strength fails.
10 For my enemies speak against me;
And those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together,
11 Saying, “God has forsaken him;
Pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.”
12 O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
13 Let them be [c]confounded and consumed
Who are adversaries of my life;
Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor
Who seek my hurt.
14 But I will hope continually,
And will praise You yet more and more.
15 My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness
And Your salvation all the day,
For I do not know their limits.
16 I will go in the strength of the Lord God;
I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only.
17 O God, You have taught me from my youth;
And to this day I declare Your wondrous works.
18 Now also when I am old and gray headed,
O God, do not forsake me,
Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to everyone who is to come.
19 Also Your righteousness, O God, is [d]very high,
You who have done great things;
O God, who is like You?
20 You, who have shown me great and severe troubles,
Shall revive me again,
And bring me up again from the depths of the earth.
21 You shall increase my greatness,
And comfort me on every side.
22 Also with the lute I will praise You—
And Your faithfulness, O my God!
To You I will sing with the harp,
O Holy One of Israel.
23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You,
And my soul, which You have redeemed.
24 My tongue also shall talk of Your righteousness all the day long;
For they are confounded,
For they are brought to shame
Who seek my hurt.

     Hi Everyone, Sorry it’s been so long since we’ve done any blogging. We had a very busy summer traveling and visiting family. The travel was mostly uneventful, although not fast as the bus averages around 55 MPH. Its nice to be able to go on the road less-traveled and stop and smell the roses. We got to go to Cortez CO and vistit with my sister Naomi, and although short, Craig’s friend Curtis.

     Then we spent a week, moving Eastward working on bus brakes, as those are always good to have in the mountains. We found a campsite at about 10000 feet, and spent the whole day repairing the back left brake as one of the springs had let go.

     Next we traveled as far as Lawton OK, where we spent a week with my Sister Esther and her family. We had lots of fun using a UV light flashlight to find scorpions at night. We also got to camp with the wild longhorns in OK. It was very nice to get caught up with family.

     Then we managed to get to Mom’s for the 4th of July. It was a good time with family although a little overwhelming at times. But all in all, we had lots of time with everyone, and I think everyone enjoyed all of our time together.

     Over the summer we got to restore the refrigerator in the bus as it had been acting up. It has not had any real maintenance for over 20 years! Now it is working better than it ever has before. Craig also got accepted to TEEX to continue his education in UXO work, God opened up doors for us to get a good student loan and provided a good place for us to stay while Craig’s in school. On the way to Bryan TX, the bus developed a distinct noise over the #3 cylinder, and as we got closer to Bryan, it developed to the point where we knew we had a serious problem. Since we arrived in Bryan TX, after Craig looked at the bus, he discovered the the #3 exhaust valve has detonated, and the bus will go no further unless it is hauled. So we will need to rebuild it after school is over, or trade it in for something that might pull a trailer. We can’t really replace the bus’s function as it is our house, and kitchen, and ride, with something else at this point but we are trusting the Lord has a plan. He always does!

Praise the Lord!

Psalm 117 New King James Version (NKJV)

Let All Peoples Praise the Lord
117 Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!
Laud Him, all you peoples!
2 For His merciful kindness is great toward us,
And the truth of the Lord endures forever.
Praise the Lord!