Date: 5/26/09
Our GPS from God
by Pam Woodson
On Memorial Day, we went to Best
Buy to check out its GPS systems for Woody. He travels a great deal, and a navigation gadget would come in handy. Let me tell
you, it would come in VERY handy! So you will not have to read between the lines in what I just wrote, I will flat-out say that God
choosing Woody to preach with a traveling ministry proves He has a sense of humor. It is only by the grace of God that Woody has managed
to make it from state to state, city to city, church to church on time...and even on the same day he's expected to be there. The latter
is an exaggeration, but by how much is debatable.
In case you think I am being cruel to my husband to expose
this, he jokes about it with people all the time. Actually, I am nicer than he is about it, because I will not dare share as many
examples as he does of how often he has struggled to try to find his way places. He does a lot better now at maneuvering
around than when we first met, thank God, but his sense of direction still needs tweaking. Add that to the male, macho tendency never
to stop and ask for directions from anyone else and, suffice to say, we have "a bit of a situation" on our hands at times.
It would only be natural for me to be somewhat relieved when he travels by plane, which throws the responsibility of arriving
at a destination upon a pilot. By car, on the other hand -- well, take for example during college when we drove to my parents'
house regularly after church for lunch. He inevitably would ask me about the turnoff from the main road: "Is this the street I turn
on to get there?" One day he asked me that and, instead of telling him, I said, "Woody, we've dated three years, and you have made
the turn every Sunday. We're engaged now. I'm not telling you the street anymore. Figure it out and remember it." He got it right
everytime after that.
He needed a GPS for the car, for sure. What about while walking? You decide. While preaching
on the East Coast, a church put him up at a nice, two-story bed-and-breakfast. Woody ministered that evening and told his
ride that he would walk back to the bed-and-breakfast since it was just a few blocks from the church. He opened the door to the
B-and-B and saw an elderly couple sitting on the sofa. "I'm going up to my room now," he told them. They didn't answer back. Woody climbed the
stairs...looked around...and noticed that nothing looked familiar. Suddenly, he realized -- he was in the wrong house! In the
dark of the night, and with a lot of the houses resembling each other in the area, he had gotten them mixed up. He went back down
the stairs and told the couple on the sofa, "Well, I guess I'll be going now," and headed out the door. They simply watched Woody
and never said a word the whole time. Yes, my husband and GPS systems need to be together.
So what does
this have to do with spiritual matters? I am sure you have figured it out by now. God has a GPS system for us, and we definitely
need it. We need to receive direction from Him about which way to go in life. Any-old-way we choose just will not do, if we belong
to the Lord. "Lord" indicates that He is the Boss. It also indicates that He knows best. What He has planned for us is far
better than anything we could come up with in our own mind. The good news is, if we truly want to follow Him in our decision-making,
He will surely let us in on the right decision to make. He has said, "I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go;
I will counsel you with My eye upon you" (Psalm 32:8). His GPS, God's Spirit, will somehow lead us down life's
path, moving us the right direction at every crossroad we encounter.
--------------------PW--------------------
"I love you very much, Katie..."
Date: 5/18/09
The Love Note
by Pam Woodson
A friend of mine wrote via the Internet recently that he is helping in the children's department at his church. That brought
back memories for me, because I was a volunteer worker six to seven years in a "children's church" (services for kids
that are held at the same time adult services are held). Contrary to common thinking, children's ministry is not a
boring babysitting program. It is a total blast! At least, that was my experience. Children's church is one of the only places where
you can act silly and have fun, and be ENCOURAGED and EXPECTED to do it! For me, it also was "therapeetic," as Barney Fife would say.
Woody and I receive many prayer requests and hear from pastors in churches concerning very serious problems to pray about and to discuss
with them. What better therapy, or avenue of connecting to the flip-side of all that heaviness, was there than to loosen
up and enjoy the joy of God with a bunch of shouting, game-playing kids?!
In the midst of all the fun and
games they engage in while learning about God at children's church, time and again kids also can touch your heart in a special way.
Sometimes it happens out of the clear blue when you least expect it, taking you completely by surprise and, on top of the emotion-grabbing
aspect, accentuating a valuable lesson for your own adult life. This I know for a fact. I experienced it one Sunday
in particular. Something happened that touched me to the core of my heart.
A boy brought me a folded piece
of paper and reported he had found it on the floor. I opened it up and read, "I love you very much, Katie." The note had a happy
face and more writing, which I did not take time to read at the moment because my focusing upon it in plain view of
the kids while the pastor was preaching could have been a distraction to them. I assumed it was a little love letter
from a boy to a girl named Katie. I smiled and walked away with it to the back of the room. There, I opened it up to read the
rest. It said, "I love you very much, Katie. But more importantly, God loves you very much. I love you. Mom."
I thought that maybe Katie would want her little note from her mom back. We had a huge crowd that day, mostly of girls,
and I did not know who Katie was. I glanced around at the nametags they were wearing. An eight- or nine-year-old girl named Katie
was on the front row. I handed her the paper and said she must have dropped it. She read it, then her eyes got big. She said, "This
isn't mine." I said, "Oh, I thought you are Katie." She said, "I am...but my mom is dead." She informed me she was
staying with someone in foster care. I quietly reached for the note to see if I could find another Katie in the
room to give it to, the right one this time. She held on to it and said, "Can I have the note? My name IS Katie, and this
is to Katie, see?"
It almost made me cry. Here this girl was without a mom, but she wanted a note from a mom
saying that the mom loves Katie and that God loves Katie. I told her she could have it. No way was I going to deny her and take it
out of her hands. I told Katie that I'm sure if her mom were here she would want her to know that she loves her and that God
loves her. Later, after the service, I got to talk to her a bit more. I didn't try to find out anything about her situation --
about her mom's death...or even if her mom had acted like she really did love her a lot. But I could tell she needed to have something
to make herself feel that way. No matter what, God loves her...and she needed to know that.
What happened
that day in children's church is something I'm going to remember the rest of my life, because it touched me and, frankly, because
I think GOD wanted Katie to have that note. The next week, I checked our records and saw that another Katie was indeed a member of
the children's church; but I had no way of knowing if she had been in the service. If it had been that Katie's mom who had written
the note, which her daughter lost, she may never know how God used it to reach another Katie with His love and encouragement.
Somehow the love note brought assurance to Katie that she was loved. Even as adults, we need assurance at times that we are loved.
That is why we too have a love note. The Love Note from God to us is His Word, the Bible. In it, God lets us know
the depths of His love for us. We can be assured our Father loves us, because He has said, "You are precious in my
eyes and honored and I love you" (Is. 43:4). The Love Note goes on to say, "He first loved us," despite all our imperfections, and
our loving Him is a response to His love (1 John 4:19). "He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1
John 4:10) is the Father's profound message to us in The Love Note. In His love, we find eternal life, peace, joy, healing,
and more than enough provision to meet any need of any kind. I hope that you would be assured of that love. I pray "that
you, being rooted and ground in love may be able to comprehend, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the
love of Christ which surpasses knowledge" (Eph. 3:17-19). I pray you could say with confidence, "[I] have come to know and have believed
the love which God has for us" (1 John 4:16).
Katie found the assurance of love she needed in the love note
she received from "Mom" that morning in church. May you receive the assurance of love you need in The Love Note which the Father has
written to you.
Copyright 2009, by Pam Woodson. All rights reserved.
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Praise & Worship CD's
Hello Love (Chris Tomlin)
Beautiful Name (Church On The Move)
Hillsong
CD's
Michael W. Smith CD's
WOW Worship CD's
Top-Ten I Play On My iPod
Over My Head, Brian Littrell
I
Know You're There, Casting Crowns
Today Is the Day, Lincoln Brewster
With You, Mark Willard
God With Us, MercyMe
You're Not Alone, Meredith
Andrews
Only You, David Crowder Band
Your Grace Is Enough, Matt Maher
What You Give Away, Vince Gill
Blessings, Martina McBride