Approaching One Year

Now begins a week that once seemed so far away. This week marks the sad reality that our Joyce has been gone a whole year. It also marks the glad reality that she is about to have her first birthday in heaven - I wonder if they note such things in that beautiful land. This side of heaven we still mourn her being taken from us - and I think it's right that we do. Not stuck in mourning but giving it's expression it's important place.

This Saturday, the 5th will mark the day she went home. On Sunday, the 6th, our immediate family will be chartering a boat from 6 to 8pm. to take us out about a mile or two directly west of the end of the Oceanside pier and scatter Joyce's ashes. If any of you would like to gather at the end of the pier around 7pm. and join us in remembering Joyce and thanking God for the gift of her life to us - we'd be blessed. The boat is called the Sea Star and we will dock around 8pm back in the harbor area by Joe's Crab Shack.

Monday, the 7th, would have been our 35th wedding anniversary. So I and my family need to get past next Monday. Appreciate your prayers this week.

In His Arm's,

Pat

Ps. 128

29 days till surgery! Seems like this past week just overflowed with fellowship and opportunities to encourage. Thank you Lord! In the midst of a time of remembering all that happened last year, God has been gracious to allow me lots of time with friends. About a week ago I read thru all my blog and journal entries from this time last year. It hurt and I broke, but I decided reading it every day wasn't necessary. And the Lord has kept me busy every day. Here are a few thoughts I had reading thru Psalms today:

I was reading the Psalms of Ascent this morning and settled for a while on Ps. 128:1. It says, "Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in His ways." This is a bottom line, foundational reality for all who know and follow the Lord! We all want to be blessed, right?

We all want to be settled and happy. The Hebrew word for "blessed" here means to be happy, fortunate, to be envied. Not in a way of sticking our noses up in the air thinking we're better than everybody else. But rather, living a life that is so full of joy and love and peace that others who don't have that desire it - because it's real in our daily lives.

The verse goes on to reveal the key to that happiness, that blessedness, and it is to be living a lifestyle that fears the Lord and follows His commandments. I need to fear the Lord daily! Not in a sense of cowering in fear - tho His awesome, mighty power and authority could rightly demand that - but fear here has the sense of reverential awe and worship. I want to reverence the Lord at all times and in every situation I find myself in, I need to be able to worship Him!

I believe "walking in His ways" is a non-negotiable premise for being blessed. Therefore, when we are walking in His ways and loving and worshipping Him, our lives are sure to be blessed. Even if or when outside circumstances are difficult. This is an inward blessing that keeps the believer steady in the storms and an outward blessing of a fruitful life. We can find ourselves in a heap of trouble if we try to handle things our way rather than His way!

Ps. 119:2 says, "Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with the whole heart."

May we do just that today! May we seek Him with the whole heart, all day long...and be blessed!

In His Arm's,

Pat

Scheduled!

Well the call came around noon today. My surgery has been scheduled for 6 weeks from now - July 26. Hooray and thanks to all of you who have been praying. And thank You Lord for giving me something to focus on.

In His Arm's (always!)

Pat

Opportunities knocking

Been an interesting week so far! Like dangling a carrot in front of horse tied to a post, calls have been coming in requesting me to speak and teach. But the one call I really need is the one that will help give definition to all the others - and that is the one from Kaiser surgery scheduling. I have a four week or so hole staring at me sometime this summer - the time for the surgery and recovery. And in the meantime, long-term plans are on hold, but I am getting a lot of reading in, trying to design a web page, and spending time with lots of friends.

I'm sure many of you are tired of hearing me talk about waiting and enduring and being a patient patient. As each week goes by in the waiting mode, I have moments of great revelation and then moments of deep frustration - and whether high or low, God is still faithful. He is using every high and low and in between time to prepare me for what is next. He is a faithful Instructor - I am a squirming, often distracted student! Anybody relate? :-)

Hope you all have a fruitful and blessed weekend and be not weary in well doing!

In His Arm's,

Pat

Ps.66

Read a beautiful promise in Ps. 66 over the weekend. Ps. 66:20 "Blessed be God Who has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me."

Charles Spurgeon commenting on that verse wrote, "His mercy and my cries still meet each other!"

How I need to remember promises like that! I have often questioned God's mercy in the circumstances He allows me to go through - at the moment I'm going through it! But God is so faithful as well as merciful. I look at His sustaining power and grace still at work in and thru me and am amazed!

Have you gone thru a lot of hard things? Are you still in love with the Lord and walking with Him? Then blessed be God Who has not turned away your prayer, nor His mercy from you!

He is still at work!

In His Arm's,

Pat

Reflecitons

Today is a "catch-up" day. After a busy week of follow up meetings from the Pastor's Conference, I needed a day to reflect and catch up on household stuff. In spending time with other pastor friends and mentors, I'm seeing a clearer direction for future ministry. In our Calvary Chapel family of churches there is a great need of pastoral care for pastors. I met so many men at the conference who were new in the pastoral ministry and could really benefit from spending time with some of us older, more experienced pastors. So I am following that leading and making myself available, as God would lead, to come alongside and talk pastoral ministry with those God brings my way.

This week also marks the 1 year mark of the start of some very painful days a year ago as my beloved Joyce began her final journey to heaven. This morning I went back to my blogs from last June and July. Joyce's passing on July 5, 07 was preceded by about 3 weeks of steep decline that both agonized and blessed so many of us. My family and I were surrounded with 24/7 care and love as we stood by Joyce in her last days. I'm still moved deeply not only by the things I wrote in my blog entries but also by the hundreds of comments given by so many dear friends both close by and far away.

If you would like to reflect along with me over the next few weeks, you can click on the month and year archive list to the right of this entry.

After Joyce passed, my family and I decided we would wait till the 1 year anniversary of her death to scatter her ashes at sea. We have scheduled that to take place Sunday evening, July 6 a couple miles off the Oceanside pier.

And what a year it's been! God has been working in deeper ways than I ever could have imagined. I'm still waiting for a surgery date to reconnect my colon which I pray isn't too much further away. And then we'll see what God has next!

In His Arm's,

Pat

Full Week!

This week really zipped by for me and it was quite full. Beginning with Mike and Sara's wedding last Saturday - a really joyful event with a not-to-forget total power failure smack in the middle of the ceremony! My daughter and son-in-law were visiting for the weekend and on Sunday we had a family day visiting Joyce's folks in Murrieta and my son's family in Menifee.

Monday morning it was the start of the annual Calvary Chapel Pastor's Conference at Murrieta Hot Springs. This years' theme was "Pastoring in the Last Days" and focused on a verse by verse study thru 1 Thessalonians. It was an especially encouraging conference for me given this new chapter in my life. Not only was I reminded and exhorted to be ready at any moment for the Lord's return but also had a penetrating encounter with the Holy Spirit during an afterglow Tuesday evening. It was one of those times of worship and prayer and thinking and weeping that lasted a couple hours but felt like just a few minutes. At one point, as I was thinking about all that's happened in my life this past year, a brother knelt down beside where I was sitting and put his arm around me and just held me - I just broke and wept as the Lord reminded me that He was my Father and would never leave or forsake me. Good stuff!!!

The conference went thru Thursday and I know without a doubt, that after my surgery my plate is going to be quite full with ministry in many venues.

Yesterday I spent most of the day with my grand daughter, Kaylee. The morning was a Father's/Grand Father's day at at her preschool and the afternoon was just hang time together.

So all in all it was a very good week of growing in the Lord and enjoying the company of brethren and family! I pray yours went well too!

In His Arm's,

Pat