Praise-tastic!!!

This is my happy face.

I'm having one of those weeks - the weeks where it's hard to be around me, because I can't stop smiling and I have to tell EVERYONE about how God is blessing us this week.  The week where I've been saying cheesy phrases and words like "Praise Update" and "Praise-tastic" just so that I can talk about how good God is.

Then I realized that the ultamite way to blab this to the world is blogging - oh, internet, how I love thee :)

Here goes the "praise-tastic" news:

• God is building our financial team in a big way!  We have 7 new partners in the last week (we haven't seen a jump like that in quite a while).  We have seen generousity in ways we've never seen before - I think God is booting us out of the states, and we're ready to be booted.
• We've been given the go ahead to leave in November - it's a VERY long story, but there was a little worry we wouldn't be able to leave when planned, now we're good to go as long as we have the money (see first bullet).
• God PROVIDES!  Should I ever doubt that?  And He provides for things that we never prayed about as if to say "See!  I know your needs before you even talk to me about it."  We found out that we didn't really understand how our health insurance works and we have a chunk of money sitting in our health account for the needs that we were worried about.  Enough to cover my dentist appointment yesterday, enough to cover the two fillings that need to be done, enough to cover a dentist appointment for Steve, glasses for me, and any immunizations that we need to do before we leave!

And those are the extra special blessings - we should be praising God like this everyday because we have another day to worship Him, love Him, and tell others about Him. 

I know that this blog won't let you comment on it, but I would challenge you to share with us your blessings - whether they're in the midst of a "blessing storm" (where everything seems blessed) in the midst of a hard time in your life.  His mercies are new every morning either way.  Great is YOUR faithfulness, oh, God!

Have a BLESSED weekend (and make sure to count them and name them one by one)!

Yahweh

This morning while doing my devos I was reading out of the book "Praying the Names of God," and this week is all about Yahweh (LORD) and the reading is from Gen 22:15-18 where Moses sees the burning bush.

It's silly how some things stand out when you hear a word.  Whenever I hear Yahweh I think of a chapel speaker I had in college.  He repeatedly said "When you hear NO WAY, think YAHWEH!" He had us repeat that over and over again and it just stuck in my mind.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

To the Egyptians the name Yahweh would have been a terror - a name to forget because it conjured plagues, darkness, defeat, and death.  But to Moses and the Israelites Yahweh would forever mean deliverance, freedom, promise, and power.

I love those ending words.  Deliverance, freedom, promise, and power.

As we go on our journey - a journey that we hope and pray will lead us to the Ivory Coast in a month and a half, there has been many doubts in my own mind.  Not others saying that there's no way that it will happen, but my own mind saying that the money amount is too big and that the amount we can do is too small.

However, in the last few months, when my mind is saying NO WAY, I've been able to lift it up to the LORD and say "Yahweh".

I pray that God is showing you that in your own lives, in your own struggles.  That when life seems too big, God is bigger! 

Blessings!