Never thought I’d quote a line from the 1939 Gene Autry song, but “I’m back in the saddle again!” After much of the summer spent in sabbatical rest, it feels great to be back at the helm of Prepare International!

In Isaiah 54 God instructs us to spread out our tent, to lengthen our cords and strengthen our tent stakes.  As school begins, I see multiple Facebook posts from parents having to lengthen the cords as their children grow and enter Kindergarten, start to drive or leave for college.  Parents look forward to the empty nest time only to be much surprised by the myriad of emotions they experience.

When Randy and I were first married, we cried out to God that He would use our family as a battle ax in His hand to aggressively advance His Kingdom. Like many others, fell on our face before God asking how to be good parents.  Throughout the years I have reminded myself that God loves my kids more than I do, even when that seems impossible to comprehend.  He not only loves them, but He perfectly loves them. It was during one of those prayers; I realized Randy, and I don’t own our kids, we are stewards of THE Father.

I know you’ve heard this before but I stand amazed at what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing with this tiny group of individuals known as Prepare International around His world.  What a Jesus! What grace to take broken, immature people and do wonderful things!  What power to use the weak to reveal great strength!

We’ve never been in such a powerful position as we are now:

The team is at an all-time high with great new additions this year

Our office area has recently been upgraded tremendously

Our teaching team around the world has grown rapidly and are being so fruitful

Our footprint in 24 nations is growing and the doors are open like never before

There are so many other stones that I have collected for the Alter of Remembrance.  A friend told me that she saw the makings of a book in the gathering of my stones.  So I will, I will write a book on transitioning and the gathering of stones, after my two books on children/families are published.  But as of right now I’m gathering a diamond, the final stone I will write about before I stand on the altar.  God impressed in my heart that PI Family Camp, these next two weeks, will be my altar.  I will be on the mountain top like Abraham and Isaac.  I am excited to see what God will do in and through me during this time.  I believe my trust in Him will be challenged. I will let you know how the process of standing on the altar of remembrance and offering myself afresh as a living sacrifice goes!

But for now let’s talk about the DIAMOND!  This is a rock of remembrance for my marriage, my husband and how God loves me through Randy.  It is an incredible blessing to me.  

Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping . . . (a line in an old song).  During transition time is critical and time seems to always be slipping, slipping away.  Matter of fact, it is quite humorous that this blog is on time and I am two full days late at getting it up. 🙂  The next stone that I am taking to the Altar to stand on is time.  

This May marked the year that our youngest, our baby girl, graduated from the university.  She graduated from Dallas Baptist University, Suma Cum Laude in a degree of Elementary Education with various certifications from what is considered one of the top universities for Education in the US.  Then just yesterday she signed her contract to teach at Terrell ISD, just south east of Dallas.  Today as we travel she is debating living arrangements. —- All grown up!

The early part of this past May, my mom died, went to be in the arms of Jesus, after a bout of Alzheimers!  The 1st stone I am gathering is my life with her, my relationship with her, how God used all that she was and all that she wasn’t to shape me and bring me to the promise of His Kingdom in my life.

I am actually going to collect two stones dedicated to my mom.  The first is before Alzheimer’s, the second is after Alzheimer’s.  I want to be honoring of her and at the same time transparent.  I am praying that I accomplish this and you can take some of what I learned, apply it to your specific situations and reach higher in God.

So as I was asking God about how to ‘survive’ all the transitioning in my life right now.  I felt like He took me again to Joshua as they started transitioning into the promised land.  They were to purify themselves which we talked about, but they followed after the presence of God.  When the priests carrying the ark of the covenant, the presence of God, touched the water, the water rolled up on itself a long ways off and let the Israelites walk across.  So I think of two things:

I will be posting a series of blogs that I wrote this past 6 months. I am changing my blogsite to the PI site. This series is about TRANSITIONING. It is called Gathering Stones. I hope you enjoy and see Jesus through these blogs. This is the 1st of the series.