The Snuggery, February 8, 2013

Please visit

Please visit a new blog that a friend has just begun. I have been extremely blessed each time he posts!  servantofthegospel.wordpress.com

Laugh with me

Laugh with me. The other day while at home Paul and I were buying a hard rake and a shovel. Paul was paying for them when I walked up to the counter. You know what is going to happen next because all stories that involve a hard rake include this component… I stepped on the rake and the handle came toward my face. Before I realized what had happened I was looking at the handle of the rake which had stopped about 3 inches from my face! Stopped! What a close call; that would have hurt some bad! I looked down and realized that something I had never given thanks for before was due for a grateful moment. My large stomach was protecting me from the aggressive rake handle!  How useful! I laughed aloud and brought the blessing to the attention of the lady behind the counter and Paul…we all laughed. I am still laughing and thanking God for ALL my blessings!

So what is the promise for today? hmmm Proverbs 17:22
A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.

When Leaders Fail Us

I looked on my right hand, and beheld, but there was no man that would know me: refuge failed me; no man cared for my soul. Psalm 142:4

That verse has always expressed a deep sadness for me. I too have felt utterly alone in the world; abandoned by those I loved and even by those paid to care for my soul. So when I recently read in Matthew 27 the account of Judas’ repentance and confession, tears of compassion came quickly.

With his heart full of remorse Judas goes back to the chief priests and elders, he throws the silver pieces on the floor and makes his desperate confession, “⁴ saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” His heart was breaking for a drop of grace or mercy to quench the fire that was beginning to lap at his soul. But instead of being instructed on how to find forgiveness his spiritual elders cruelly abandon his lost soul, “And they said, “What is that to us? You see to it!” They were the ones who had led Judas down this path of perdition as they invited him into their plan to condemn Jesus. Their own words identify their culpability, “⁶ But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, “It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood.”

Poor Judas, without any hope he ends his life.

Yes, there are many things we could say about the theology of this passage and wiser people have debated those thoughts. However, none can debate the terrible and cruel failure of the spiritual leaders in this passage. Leaders are responsible for much and yes they are only humans after all.  Do you find yourself  like me, having to forgive those who are given the charge of caring for your soul? We know what Judas should have done. He should have gone back to Jesus, like Peter had done and like we will do today. For Jesus is our high priest and our saviour.

His promise to us today is:

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Matthew 6:14, 15 “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

Hours of Service Rules (Trucker’s Sabbath)

Truck drivers are carefully monitored. Our working hours are legislated and monitored by our company and then the law keepers…the Ministry of Transportation MTO (or in the states Dept of Transportation, DOT). We are pulled into spot check areas where our truck is weighed, and checked for mechanical compliance to the law, and our daily logs are inspected to see if we are obeying the Hours of Service Rules as well as completing our mechanical checks daily as the law requires of us.

You should feel happy about how strictly regulated the trucking industry has become. You should because most people in the industry aren’t. I believe the roads are much safer because of the restrictions placed on drivers and companies.

Because we drive in both US and Canada Schneider asks us to drive by American rules (more restrictive than Canadian).  These are listed below,

• Drivers may drive a maximum of 11 hours after 10 consecutive hours off duty.
• A Driver may not drive beyond the 14th hour after coming on duty, following 10 consecutive hours off duty.
• A driver may not drive after 70 hours on duty in 8 consecutive days.
• A driver may restart a 8 consecutive day period after taking 34 or more consecutive hours off duty.
• CMV(commercial motor vehicle) drivers using the sleeper berth provision must take at least 8 consecutive hours in the sleeper berth, plus 2 consecutive hours either in the sleeper berth, off duty, or any combination of the two

We have been driving pretty steady for the last 9 days and we are both “out of hours.” We have used up our 70 hours and need to stop for 34 hours to reset. Paul & I are both grateful that the law enforces rest for us.

It reminds me of how wise our Lord was when he “imposed” a one day in seven rule for us. One day to rest and to focus on His truth. One day to stop to reset and be blessed with Him. A sabbath is not an old idea. The government of Canada and the United States know how important it is to regulate rest and they spend alot of effort, money and time to do it.

Thank you Lord for rest…and thank you for work…but thank you for enforced rest. You are wise.

Promise: Psalm 3:⁵ I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me

Northern Exposure

Just a short note today. Not much battery left. Looking forward to the new IPad coming out 🙂

Driving up north on Hwy 17 last week it was about 2 in the morning when I rounded a corner there was … NOT a moose … but a young girl in a hoodie standing in the opposite lane waving her hands at me to stop. I carefully pulled over onto the shoulder unsure of whether it would support me. As I reached for my hat and reflective coat she came and stood on the road beside my door. It was a miracle she wasn’t killed.

Her car was up on the snowbank on the opposite side of the road and as we walked toward it I asked if she had a coat. She responded that she was going to Alberta. Hmmm she seemed to be in shock. She was shivering and so I suggested we sit in the truck where she could warm up until help came.

As I climbed in there were some trucks passing us heading south and so I asked them to get the OPP I had seen a few miles back to come up. They confirmed they would and within 10 minutes two OPP cruisers were marking the scene with their lights.

I told her to wait in the truck and I would go talk to the officers. Paul had been silent in the bunk this whole time and she was unaware that anyone else was in the truck. Paul told me later that when I got out she started bawling. She couldn’t have been more than 18 or 20 and it just broke my heart to think that her parents would have to get the news about the accident. The police invited her to his cruiser and she got down from my truck. The officer told me I could leave and so I drove on thankful to have been part of her story.

Letting our kids go is never easy. Its a big world out there. But there is a loving God watching over them and sending caring people to help them when we can’t be there. I wonder if she finally made it to Alberta or decided to go home for a while?

Inequity, Injustice?

This blog entry is a communication between myself and a dear friend reproduced with permission.

From my dear friend:

Your blog from today.  Luke 12:27 – 30.  Makes perfect sense for me in my little world where I truly don’t worry about anything, but what about those little kids in Haiti trapped under fucking rubble.  How is he providing for them right now?  I always hear Christians say ‘something good will come out of this’ or ‘God must have a purpose in this that we don’t know yet’.  Sure God has a purpose in some innocent little child getting crushed by a building – he must.

My response:

First, I would challenge you in your assumption that your world is “safe” and that your children are not threatened in any way. Then I would ask what an assumption like that is based from…the belief that YOU have your life under control? That is like a sailor thinking that because the wind is in his sails and his boat is moving the direction he had planned that HE is in control of the wind! If you do not see your safety as a gift from the hand of God then you are believing the lie that you are the god of your own world. And worse that you are doing a good job of it.

OK, lets assume that you didn’t mean to communicate that to me. Then the question you really meant to ask was, “Why has God blessed my family with comfort, wealth, and future when the people of Haiti have received poverty, lack of opportunity, oppression and now environmental calamity? Why such inequity?”

Well, of course this is a question that could/has/should be asked any time of our lives, but made more presssing as we struggle to deal with the scenes of tragedy from the earthquake in Haiti. Quick pat answers (ie:’something good will come out of this’ or ‘God must have a purpose in this that we don’t know yet’.)  only serve to make us more angry at what we may perceive as injustice. When answering questions of the unknown we must start with what we know.

1. I DON’T AND CAN’T UNDERSTAND When you approach an honest question that looks like the answer might accuse God of injustice you must come with the humble attitude of a child to his father. Our wisdom is foolishness compared to God’s mind. We cannot assume that we KNOW what is right and wrong, fair or injust. Take one of your children and ask them to understand fully the complexities of your job. Then ask them to pass judgement on the decisions you made today. They would make poor judges. So are we before God when we presume to understand His work. When you can count the stars in the universe and remember all their names and hold them in place, then you may be getting somewhere close to His wisdom (no, not nearly).

2. MY PRIORITIES ARE NOT GOD’S PRIORITIES Now that you have humbled yourself and come to God with an aching heart (and not an accusing finger) you can ask Him the real questions and pour the pain in your heart at His feet. In Luke 12 we see clearly one of God’s priorities,

4″I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. 6Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies[a]? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid”

Is death the worse thing that could happen? Have you heard the people rescued from the rubble cursing God? No, time after time they give God thanks. Personally, I heard one rescued woman speaking to a CNN reporter say, “I just kept calling out on the name of Jesus and He gave me strength to hold on.”

Who should we fear … “him who has power to throw you into hell.” Who is the only one who has the power to condemn people to hell? NOT Satan, it is God. So we are told to fear God in one sentence and the next reminds us that he cares deeply for even little birds. Then those strong words: Dont be afraid. Instruction to fear him and then don’t be afraid. In other words, The most powerful one, the one who will write the last chapter is looking upon you with eyes of love.

The earthquake, the sheets of concrete, the dehydration cannot send these people to hell. No, the one who is the judge of their soul has squeezed himself between those slabs to speak words of comfort to them as he leads them home where their inheritance will make our wealth look like the meager contents of a child’s piggie bank. Their body is trapped but their souls are free. He knows the difference. We are often confused.

3 WHO IS THE ONE IN  REAL TROUBLE?

Luke 12: 15Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”16And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’18″Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’20″But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ 21″This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.

This is a truth that I understood when I first visited Africa. Abundance, wealth, ease are not our friends. We are completely unaware that our souls are being raped by affluence. Your children are in far more danger of losing their souls because of the society in which they are growing. The bible warns us of the dangers of riches in many places but we keep on believing that we are safe with our comfort, wealth, and future. But they demand an awful toll, one which withers our capacity to know God.

And you, are you “rich toward God?” Is your heart at full peace with the one who you are to fear? Or does He frighten you?

From my dear friend:

You’re correct that my assumption is not that I am in control of my world nor my children’s and that my lack of understanding comes from circumstance.  Sure God presumably chose to place me on the earth in the circumstances that he did just as he chose the baby in Haiti to be born into the circumstances that he was.  Challenging our societal view of comfort, peace and future doesn’t change your point of view unless you change your point.  Which is the point.  You can’t truly understand inequity unless you relenquish your circumstance.  And sure, my circumstance can change tomorrow here just as easily as it can in Haiti.  I could be diagnosed with cancer in the morning and get smashed to smitherines on the way to work so I get your point about conventional wisdom about what is peace and comfort and future – and how our relationship with God transcends anything temporal.  That being said.  Why is anyone in any rush then to change the circumstance of the people of Hait or anywhere else that is deemed to have been dealt the hand of inequity if those circumstances are inconsequential?  By following the logic of your point, the people of Haiti’s souls are free yet they live in unspeakable horror while our souls ar doomed to hell yet we live in unspeakable wealth. But if circumstance has absolutely nothing to do with our souls, then it has nothing to do with anything meaning the souls of the wealthy could just as easily be free while the souls of the Haitians (I realixe we’re doing an awful lot of generalizing here) could just as easily be damned. So all things being equal, I still don’t see the point of suffering.

Sure, I get the argument that I have a puny brain that can’t comprehend the things of God and his priorities. Clearly God has given you the gift of being able to discern his desire for these people. He is the one after all who created my puny brain so I’m stuck with trying to figure it out (with his help of course) with what I’ve got.

My response:

Our circumstances certainly DO matter. From each circumstance we have opportunity to grow, to give, to see. Being rich we have the opportunity to help those in need or we can choose to be self absorbed. In need we have opportunity to respond with anger or choose faith. How we respond to our circumstance is what makes them important. The answer that brings balance is, “Who is God and Who am I?”  When we get those two questions answered the other questions are answered by default.

And then we can add to that…this relationship with our God is a life of FAITH first and foremost. Faith to believe what he says about himself and yet see what seems to be discrepancy. To wait to understand. To continue doing what is right even when it doesn’t make sense. Faith my friend.

Behold the mercy of our King,

Who takes from death its bitter sting,

And by his blood, and often ours,

Brings triumph out of hostile pow’rs,

And paints, with crimson, earth and soul

Until the bloody work is whole.

What we have lost God will restore –

That, and himself, forevermore,

When he is finished with his art:

The quiet worship of our heart.

When God creates a humble hush,

And makes Leviathan his brush,

It won’t be long before the rod

Becomes the tender kiss of God.

from The Misery of Job and the Mercy of God, by John Piper

used by permission

Download the whole poem in PDF format or to your audio player (read by John Piper) at

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/2441_The_Misery_of_Job_and_the_Mercy_of_God/

Back to work tomorrow

The photo that heads this blog was taken in … well actually although both Paul and I remember taking the photo we can’t agree on where it was taken. And THAT is an accurate description of our lives. Accurate because we have been to so many places they all seem to meld together.

When I look at the photo warm feelings fill me. I love driving with Paul. We have a lot of fun crisscrossing the Continent. (BTW: would that mean that we could be called “incontinent?”) There is laughter and hard work. We appreciate each other’s skills and compliments are not rare between us. We are best friends going on one adventure after another.

Even our truck has become an identity in our team. I call her Black Beauty of course. She is the partner we work with everyday and she does what we could never do. She is strong and reliable and I am attached to her emotionally. When I grind her gears I audibly apologize and imagine her wincing. But she forgives me and keeps giving all she has to get the job done.

After a long shift (11 hours) there is the cozy feeling of getting changed into my pjs brushing my teeth and climbing into the bunk. Snapping the cage in place (seatbelt webbing made to cover the bunk with 3 seatbelt buckles) and snuggling under the blankets I listen to the tires on the road; the power transferring from her differential to the drives. I love being lulled to sleep while my husband starts his shift behind the wheel. I trust his driving.

Then there is the beauty of the land that we have become familiar with; the joy of praying together before starting a shift; the satisfaction of on time delivery; camaraderie with other drivers, especially Schneider drivers; the benefit of being well paid; the visits with family and friends along the route and the joy of time at home.

God has abundantly provided for us and although we only get to church once a month, He has never forgotten how many hairs we have on our heads, or in which bottle He caught my tears. His thoughts toward us are innumerable and His plans are for our good. Today in church my favorite Pastor spoke and the Lord said to me, “Why are you sad Denise? Are my provisions not enough for you?” I am so foolish Lord, and You are so wise. You know the beginning and the end. I trust you and all the room in which you have placed me.

Promises from today’s blog:

Luke 12: 27-30
Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith!  And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them. But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well

Luke 12:7
But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

Psalm 56:8
Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

Psalm 40:5
Many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful worksWhich You have done; And Your thoughts toward us Cannot be recounted to You in order; If I would declare and speak of them,They are more than can be numbered.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you,plans to give you hope and a future.

Psalm 143:8
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

Psalm 31:8
And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.

Proverbs 19:3
The foolishness of man perverteth his way: and his heart fretteth against the LORD.

Job 12:13
To God belong wisdom and power; counsel and understanding are his.

Revelation 21:6
He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Great expectations

It feels comfortable when I have visualized and imagined a scenario before it happens. There is a calm feeling that accompanies a sense of hope when change in my life is a result of a purposeful path. When my great expectations meet reality I am relaxed and happy. (Now listen for the calm pleasant music)

However, when my expectations are lost; tossed overboard in exchange for the chance to survive the storm. When a radical course correction is made because there was no other choice. Then the chaos starts. (Music slides into dramatic and dark)

I know because it has happened to me. The first time I felt it was when we moved from a loving country community to a smallish city. It would wash over me without warning and the question would be, “What are you doing here? Do you live here? Why?” I would have to retrace decisions, validate the purpose and then reality would settle back upon me.

Its happening again. It’s been two years. Just today the pain came over me and the loss of my great expectations was pressing down on my chest. It was not overwhelming. I didn’t even have to sit down. I just swallowed and made a conscious choice to accept the pain as an uninvited guest in my life. A guest sent to me by my loving God.

So what promise did I take to my shoulder? What truth did I wear like a garment to help me through the pain?

2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that youneed, you will abound in every good work.”

Deuteronomy 31:8 “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Now let me tell you that I took the challenge I mentioned in my last blog at least 30 years ago and it has been a transforming power in my life. Today when the pain came over me I didn’t recite the verses like I would have when I first started believing by living the truth. Today, 30 years later, I simply believed that God would not abandon me. I KNOW Him because He has revealed Himself to me in His word and I believe what He says.

Take a promise and live by it. Stand firm, walk in truth. denise

A new blog

A new blog is like a fresh pad of paper. It holds some awesome threat as well as adventurous opportunity. In grade 9 I had an autograph book. Mr. Parker, my math teacher wrote this, “Life lies before you, fresh as the driven snow. Be careful how you tread it for every step will show.” As soon as I read the words they pressed themselves into my mind and I knew they were important words. I have never forgotten them, although I have not heeded their counsel. Often my footprints have lead to places that I wouldn’t want anyone to follow. My new blog will mark my footprints but I hope to lead you to know the faithfulness of the one that I am following.

Hebrews 11:11b says, “because she judged Him faithful who had promised.” It speaks of how Sarah’s faith changed her life and the future of  the nation of Israel, God’s people. Yes it is faith, believing what God says is true and living by it that changes life from boring to meaningful, from threatening to peaceful. If you are tired of trying to fake your christian life because your experience of faith isn’t what you were expecting. If you yawn when you go to church, or when you look into the Bible. Then I have a challenge for you.

1. Find a promise in the Bible. 2. Live in the light of that truth. Period. That’s it. Too simple? Try God.