Archives for December 2011

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Sometimes I come to mental conclusions that are not the right conclusions. I suppose everyone does this; certain evidence points in a certain direction, and we make snap judgments based on that evidence. This satisfies us. We feel smug in knowing what we know (not knowing that we are wrong).

The problem is that I recognize this tendency in myself, and I need to not allow myself to nurse this tendency. I need to press myself to do a little more research, What else do you need to know? If you dig a little harder and find out other realities, will you make your mind up in another direction? How do you know for a certainty that this conclusion is the right conclusion?

Take the water softener, for instance. We have well water that is high in iron content. Two summers ago, after the flood in our basement caused by the storm that knocked out the power in hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans’ homes, I had the water pump replaced, and the plumber also suggested that due to the age of the water heater, it could spring a leak that would leave me with more flooding in the basement. So, we bought a new water heater and he installed it.

“Anything else?” I asked, knowing that other repairs would only help his financial bottom line, but he had been extremely helpful, tutoring me in the whole water system in my home, what did what, what could be improved, etc. “For instance, your water softener is so old, it’s not really doing anything. The best thing you can do right now is disconnect it and buy a new softener.” He made his point, showing me the iron in a water test he performed, and truthfully, with black silt in the water that turned grey in my tub and the kitchen sink, with the sulfur odor when we turned on taps, and with the fact that we chose never to drink the house water, only clean with it, the plumber guy didn’t have to do much convincing.

He gave me the estimate I asked for, which totaled about $3,500. I researched water softeners, looked into saltless tanks, called another company who sent out a another water guy, who took the same water test, informed me of what I already knew, that we had a high level of iron in our water. He also gave me an estimate of around $3,500.

So, I concluded that a new water softener would have to wait. There was no way we were going to cough up $3,500—but every time I took a bath I rued this forced decision and the fact that we did not have excess funds to fix this problem. “Money for a water softener” is actually on my list of prayer requests.

I kept meaning to call DuPage Water Systems, the company that had installed our original tank, but it wasn’t until Mike Teague, the builder who has been replacing our toilets, said, “Boy, is your water bad. Those innards, that tubing are filled with rust! Why don’tcha do somethun’ about your softener system?”

I explained that our financial reserves were depleted (annoyed slightly that he with the construction industry floundering in this economy wasn’t more sympathetic). I told him what I had discovered in my two responsible-homeowner inspections and estimates.

“Yeah. Well, why don’tcha call DuPage Water Systems? They’re close. Maybe they gotta payment plan or somethun’.”

So I did. DuPage Water Systems was having a sale—great timing, said the sales guy. Nor would they charge for installation. In addition, because I was a previous customer, they’d take 15% off and throw in the first blocks of salt as a courtesy. The total was $1,500 (plus another $15 because I put it on our MasterCard and they pass the merchant’s fee along to the user).

They are installing the new water-softener tank this morning.

I’ve gone for almost two years with wretched water, with having to Lysol the toilets every few days instead of once a week, wondering if my skin was itchy because of the black residue that turned the tub grey simply because I got lazy and didn’t listen to that inner nudge: Why don’t you call DuPage Water? (I pass this company frequently as I drive, and it was the name on the old tank that had been disconnected.)

God is patient with us, isn’t He? I just needed two broken toilets being replaced with new ones (both fast-flush that only use 1.5 gallons of water) and a builder who couldn’t see the sense in going to the work of installing an almost new bathroom, new plumbing lines and have them corrode with rust in a few years. One more phone call and I might have had this hard-water problem fixed two years ago.

But, I got another chance, another chance to correct my miscalculation. Mike, the builder, just talked sense. Oh, for more concrete thinkers in my life—Why don’t cha just…? I might not come to as many erroneous decisions as I am inclined to come to.

Sometimes God is a Divine Nag—but that’s OK. He knows what’s good for us. I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

As suspected, the new bathroom cabinet I purchased from HOBO’s was too big for the collapsed backseat of my compact car. The young salesman assisted me in lifting the cabinet/mirror and the sink/counter into the back, but I would have to beg or borrow a van from someone, make another 20-minute trip to and back from Lombard. And, I really needed to bring the cabinet home this Tuesday night so that Mike, our handyman, could install it on Wednesday morning.

Who in the world could I borrow some vehicle from large enough to haul that cabinet in to my house?

I left HOBO’s trying to remember if my son’s SUV was roomy enough to fit in this box that measured 36” by 28” by 28”. Drat—it was a cold November night, slightly rainy. Jeremy would have to clear out the back of his SUV—what a nuisance!

At that moment, a flatbed truck cut in front of my car, zoomed into the lane that was on the far left of me. The truck had a large sign that read:

MENARDS RENT-A-TRUCK
ONLY $18.99 for 75 MINUTES!

“Now there’s a thought. I could rent a truck from the Menards near my house—I’ve done that before. I wonder if there’s a Menards near here. I could leave my car, rent the truck, pick up the cabinet from HOBO’s, drive it home, unload the cabinet, then drive back it back, pay for it, then pick up my car in the parking lot. Would that take more than 75 minutes? Probably not.”

I literally thought to myself, Follow that Menards rent-a-truck. Sure enough, a Menards loomed before my eyes in the shopping center to my left. The bozo who had cut me off, moving across two lanes, was probably returning this truck there. I then proceeded to cut across two lanes in order to make a sudden left-hand turn into the parking lot myself.

“David,” I phoned home. “I’m at Menards. I’m renting a truck to move that cabinet. It didn’t fit into the Mazda.”

“You’re renting a truck…?”

“Yes. I’m renting a truck.” My theory on trucks (not semis, just the flatbed kind) is that all kinds of bozos drive trucks—like the guy who cut me off in the rent-a-truck. If bozos can drive trucks, so can I.

So—I rented the truck, drove back to Lombard, picked up the cabinet, drove home where David helped me tip the cabinet box onto a dolly and move it into the garage. He then decided to accompany me back to Menards, where I learned that I had arrived within the 75 minutes and my deposit would cover the fee. We picked up the little Mazda, ordered me a dinner at the Wendy’s drive-through, returned home and emptied the back of its load—a mirrored cabinet, a porcelain sink and countertop, and the funky new faucet set.

I was home by 7:15, ready to meet my handyman by Wednesday morning.

However, in reflecting back on this little incident, I realize the “bozo” driving the truck may in truth have been a “bozo” (he seemed a little bozo-ish standing at the Menards customer-service counter in front of me), but he clearly participated in a scheme that we call some “unexpected evidence of God’s care.” Because of all the remodeling going on, not to mention the fact that it is the first week of December with all the Christmas tasks also looming, I had been up since 2:19 that morning, functioning in meetings with just four hours of sleep—not enough to propel a dedicated non-shopper into an evening of shopping. Certainly, I wasn’t eagerly looking forward to begging a car from family or friends.

That truck shot in front of me with a sign that could have been neon: Rent-a-Truck! Rent-a-Truck! I was not thinking about Menards trucks; I was thinking about whether or not I could fit that cabinet box in my son’s SUV. And, the guy driving that truck had to be cheeky enough to cut me off, someone who could clip in front of me, then once he had my attention, zoom over into the next lane. I got the idea: “Hey! What if I rent a truck? It’s only $18.99 for 75 minutes. I’ve spent $541 already, and it will save me a whole night of hunting around. Yah! Let’s rent a truck!”

This is a silly story and the fact that I consider it to be one of the ways my loving Heavenly Father intervened in my really long day may seem silly to someone else. But hey!—it’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Once again, I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

“Have you tried out HOBO’s?” The man who asked me this question was actually a salesperson at Home Depot, the home-improvement store close by. The innards of our downstairs guest-room toilet just up and died on Thanksgiving morning, and I had to cry for help to replace it (I’ve hated that yellow porcelain fixture the whole 35 years we’ve lived in the house). Since Mike Teague, a contractor who picks up odd jobs to supplement his income, was coming anyway, we might as well scrape together the money to have him tear apart our master-bedroom bathroom—the cabinet had a bottom in its floor and the toilet was slowly sinking through the sub-flooring.

“’Bout time you did something about that bathroom,” my fix-it friend commented as he was laying tarp on the stairs, folding up the area carpet and moving intruding furniture. “You got everything moved out up there.”

“Yep,” I replied, not really happy about spending the next week without a bathroom (the bathroom in my husband’s study has been completely shut down because water leaks from it into the dining room ceiling). Nor do I enjoy, like other women seem to, the arduous comparison-shopping it takes to price, choose, then gather paint and a new cabinet, a new basin, lights and faucets. Not the way I want to spend my time.

The salesman sensed I wasn’t finding what I wanted, so he explained that HOBO’s was sort of a home-improvement store outlet where the prices were unbeatable. It was in Lombard, several towns east of us. Last Saturday, I picked my husband up from the Amtrak train depot in Chicago, we caught a delightful lunch together at Sweet Sally’s Café on Taylor Street, then stopped past HOBO’s (Home Owners Buyers Outlet) on North Avenue on our way home.

There certainly was plenty to choose from. Mike gave me a Wednesday deadline, and last night, without any other arduous shopping stops, I cleared the hatchback of my compact Mazda Protégé and bought a bathroom cabinet, a matching mirror cabinet with its own lighting system, a porcelain sink set in a counter and some funky-looking faucets.

I wish I had kept a list through all these years of a word fitly spoken. How often the question, “Have you thought about…?” has totally shifted my thinking and set me on a better track. And, I am convinced these little nudges are also divine guidance, ways God uses a human comment, advice, or as the Scripture says, “a word fitly spoken” to direct our paths.

I am grateful for that anonymous salesperson. He directed me just the way I needed to go. It was a small but simple thing and it saved me hours of hunting around.

I spy Your hand! Thank you, God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

One of the ways we teach people to spy God every day in the world is to teach them to look for “any help to do God’s work in the world.” Yet when we say this, people often are confused. “What do you mean,” they will ask. What is obvious to me is obviously not obvious to many others.

So, I simply explain that doing God’s work in the world is anytime we seek to do good. A person does not have to have a calling to earn a master’s in theology to get that. God is good, and so, when we seek to do good in the world and find that He has helped us, we can readily identify His intervening hand in that interaction.

For instance, I write. I write books and articles and donor letters and marketing e-mails; I write this blog and an e-mail bimonthly newsletter. These days, I’m struggling to write business plans and spiritual-growth material. This is one of the ways I do good in the world. With so much writing going on, I am completely dependent upon God to catch my attention with the right idea at the right time.

A friend of ours died recently. When we were serving in an inner-city church in Chicago, he had been on our staff as Community Outreach Director. And, after my husband resigned to head up a national media ministry, this friend went on to develop a model Christian community development outreach in the slum-infested heart of the city.

I wanted to take some time to remember this friend and his life. But, since most of my memories of him were during the few years we worked together—early in our marriage—I felt that my remembrances might be trivial given the breadth of his accomplishments.

“It just so happens…”—well, I’ve learned that nothing just happens—there are reasons beyond our ken as to the whys and wherefores of life’s events. But, as far as I’m concerned, God directs our paths. It was just so divinely ordained that a college professor has been living in our home this school year, and he and I have been conversing about power structures in our society and how hard it is to confront them because they basically, even when they cause ill, have no reason to change.

This discussion caused me to order the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr’s book Moral Man & Immoral Society. Niebuhr, more than any other thinker, was the one who most influenced Dr. Martin Luther King. One quote summarized a thought I wanted to emphasize when writing this tribute to my friend: “Conflict with power structures is inevitable, and in this conflict power must be challenged by power.”

I began to think about how outrageous, how courageous, how wearying it is for mere mortals to stand against these power structures that become entrenched in our societies and do incalculable harm and how my friend, and his co-workers, served as an example of the few amazing people in the world who ask, “Why not?”

And, in this mental journey, in this non-coincidental mental journey was the theme of the e-newsletter I wanted to write for my remarkable friend, recently deceased.

Help to do God’s work in the world. I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

Share this Article

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

My four-year-old granddaughter, Eliana Lizette, is taking a karate class at the local West Chicago studio. “Mom,” said my son, her father. “If you are in town, you might want to meet us at 6:00 and see what’s going on.” Since Eliana is being raised to speak bilingually, she is registered in a class conducted in Spanish.

So, I spent one delightful hour, sitting beside my son (an immigration counselor, among other things), occupying Eliana’s brother Nehemiah, age two, and laughing at the enchanting incongruities that were narrated by the droll commentary of my humorous son.
Eliana is the only blonde in the class of twelve, as well as being the youngest, but she speaks Spanish better than she speaks English. At this moment, as class commenced she was concerned to notify her instructor, “Maestro…Maestro?” that she had a bandage on her knee—since this was all in Spanish, interpretation was provided by her father.

Although Eliana can play well by herself, she often does float into her own little world, distracted by whatever is going on in her head. So, I was impressed that she stuck with the exercises, followed the command of her instructor (a very patient Mexican karate expert), and partnered pretty well with an adorable Hispanic girl, a little older, who kept repositioning Eliana’s hand in a face-to-face exercise when it kept slipping from the other child’s shoulder. My granddaughter sat to the side when she was supposed to—with the other white-belt kids—and stayed there! And, when she didn’t pay attention, her teacher softly called her name, “Eliana. Eliana…”, drew her back to the activity, instructed her with questions, and reminded her to focus. “Focus, Eliana, focus.”

“Eliana spends a lot of time noticing herself in the mirror,” said her dad. Yep. I could see that was true—my budding 4-year-old narcissist kept running around the circle, jumping the mats, and looking back over her shoulder at the wall-length mirrors. (Oh well, I’ve done the same through my sixty-some years of life—probably runs in the family genes.)

“But notice, Mom,” he continued. “She has stayed with the program for almost a whole hour. When we began, she was all over the room.” Sure enough, my granddaughter, who pretends not to hear you if she doesn’t want to hear you, through the patient coaching of a karate instructor who obviously loved to work with kids, was developing the capacity to listen, to obey, to join in the group activity, and to stay focused. (“Eliana, Eliana…”)

Sitting there, with Nehemiah matching his toddler volume to the shouted commands of the instructor and the students (“Uno—hah! Dos—hah! Tres—hah! Quatro—cinco—seis—hah! Eliana, Eliana…”), I tried to drown out the Hispanic soap opera on the television screen positioned for the benefit of parents waiting on the benches. The commands kept shifting from Spanish to Japanese (it is karate after all), and because I God Hunt all the time, I kept thinking that this is a lot like the way our Heavenly Instructor works with us.

Patiently, patiently, He calls our names. “Karen! Karen!” When we get off track, He breaks His schedule, stands beside us, and shows us how the task is done. Or, He uses a little friend to keep moving our misplaced hand into the correct position.

The Christian journey has its own rhythms, patterns, positions and movements that we must learn if we are going to function well within the framework of creating Christ-like lives. In the chaos of the classroom of life, God’s constant attentive affection can bring us finally into a place of highly practiced attention.

Despite the other kids running around, the soap opera in the corner, our own inability to stay with God’s program, the various languages and ability levels, parents coming and going, the next class waiting on the sidelines, and our grandmother laughing from the adult benches, we can learn the art and discipline of spiritual rigor. We can learn to hear His voice calling our names despite the cacophony of the world in which we live.

“AH-HUH!”

A metaphor, right before my eyes. I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Usually, around the end of October or middle of November, I find myself driving somewhere, and my eye catches a stand of wild red dogwoods by the roadside. Now I love to poke these twigs into an arrangement of Christmas greens in the barrel by the mailbox and in the pots by the walk that leads to the front door. So, I stop and clip a fistful with the garden scissors I keep in the car’s glove department. But, for the last two years, winter freeze has hardened the soil unseasonably early, forcing me to carry soup pots of boiling water out of the kitchen, through the garage, across the driveway, across the street to pour them into the barrel to soften the dirt. What a job!

So this year, though I’ve been traveling, I’ve kept my eye on the weather report. Tonight we are supposed to have our first freeze; I’ve invited 25 neighbor women for a pre-Christmas tea and really don’t have much time. It looks as though I’ll be boiling water again this year! Not only do I not have greens for the barrel, but I don’t have red dogwood twigs to stick into them.

However, my sister called yesterday. She and her husband took a trip to Paris, and while gone, their yardmen disposed of the twigs she usually uses in her Christmas pots. What was my daughter’s new cell number? Melissa once had a floral-design business, so we look to her to help us in predicaments like this. “If you can’t find any, just spray some branches the colors you want.” She thought that was a good idea for a backup plan if needed.

I did grab a moment yesterday to run to Home Depot. This Sunday will mark the second week of Advent and I don’t even have a traditional Advent wreath for the living-room coffee table. Walking into the garden center, I spied a tub with a few bunches of redwood twigs, and though it pained me, I plunked down $7.99 for two bunches ($7.99 for each bunch; that’s $17.08 for what I usually harvest for free—ouch!). But, if I can carve a moment this afternoon when the temperature is at its highest—a forecasted 41 degrees—then perhaps I will spare myself the labor of heating and hauling all that hot water.

Now some people might call this a circumstance, but the timing was simply too unusual. I call it a God Hunt Sighting. One phone call turned my mind toward dogwood twigs, the very day before a freeze was predicted to set in. A few dogwood twig bunches sat at the doorway to the Home Depot garden center and I spied them. I have this afternoon to store the dried gourds, haul in the few pumpkins that will freeze, and plant my red twigs—all I need is an hour!

Thanks be to God. I spy Him!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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(With the Help of Moises and Eric Habibama)

Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I made plans with our Thanksgiving dinner guests for the husband, Janvier Habibama, to come back and work in the yard to help me get everything spring ready before the winter winds froze the ground, and the snows covered the shrubs, the bushes, the leaf-fall, and all the land.

Janvier’s family are refugees from Congo with resident status here in the U.S. I knew he had worked for a landscaping company this summer and was now bagging groceries at Jewel Foods—but there couldn’t be enough to support his family of five. “And boys,” I addressed these comments to Eric, age 11 and Moise, age 8, “if you want to come back and work alongside your father, I’ll pay you a dollar an hour with a bonus if you work really, really well.”

So, on Friday morning, I picked them up in the apartment complex on Roosevelt Road in Wheaton, Illinois. Many churches in the area have an outreach to the immigrants who live here, helping them to acculturate to this bewildering technological society.

Janvier worked like a trooper, not even pausing for a glass of water or for lunch. Eric took a few short breaks but for the most part, he kept up with his dad. Janvier knew how to use the leaf-blower. “This is my job,” he said, indicating his summer work with the landscaping company. The boys’ assigned tasks were to haul the leaves into a pile and to clip down the plants that were now withering in the cold air. Moise took more breaks than his older brother—he is only eight, after all—but he finished really well, spending the last hour working strongly beside the others.

It was a joy to have enough money to pay them—my account at the bank is short—but there was enough to pay $15 per hour to Janvier and $12 (counting a bonus) for Eric and $8 to Moise. Janvier thanked me several times—he didn’t know how happy I was to be able to give him work that he could do and be able to pay him, not just provide a demeaning (even though well-meant) handout. “Thank you,” he said. “You gave my boys work also. That teaches them. They need to know you no work, you no eat.”

That’s not exactly my parenting philosophy; I’m more of the school that believes children should be taught that work is fun. Being able to cook or move laundry or plant a garden helps children develop feelings of competency, and it is this that gives them self-esteem. But then, I have never spent six years living in a refugee camp with meager food supplies and with everyone out of work.

Life is filled with these mutual exchanges. We do for someone who does for us but the beneficiaries are really our children. How does that happen? We teach and are taught. We extend compassion and gain surprising insight into what deprivation really does to humans (and their offspring). God created us to connect and to be connected; we are social beings.

I loved having Janvier Habibama and Eric and Moise in my home, listening to their lives—as well as having my yard put into better shape so there is not so much back-breaking work for me to accomplish come spring.

We give and receive and receive and give. This is a better path for our common human journey, is it not?

I spy God in these tender, and often surprising, connections.

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

One of my great joys in these years of my life has to become an advocate on the board for the Women’s Cycle of Life, a series of lessons that integrates Scripture into preventive healthcare. This particular set of lessons (there are over 10,000 in all) specializes in teaching women the most important things they need to know about their own bodies and women’s health.

Charleen McWilliam, a nurse who once worked in public health for the state of California, developed these lessons and she became Director of Women’s Cycle of Life. However, this program was languishing. It just needed a board advocate, which I enthusiastically became.

Charleen and I, with the encouragement of the Medical Ambassadors International Board, have made this an emphasis for the last year. We met each other in Budapest, Hungary to attend a congress on world health. We ran eight focus groups across the country to discover the best ways to present this program. We received a grant from the organization to develop the tools we needed to make friends and find financial supporters. We taped a teaching video.

Charleen headed to Argentina for training and consultation with Master Trainers (people trained to train others to train!). I conducted the initial interview at Charleen’s request to interview an RN PhD working at the University of Illinois Medical Center here in Chicago, and she was invited to become International Resource Director and accepted the invitation.

Forty Women’s Cycle of Life training toolkits were put together by a volunteer crew. A former WCL trainer, Holly Freitas, came back on board. We are ready to launch home groups where we introduce the concept of Women’s Cycle of Life as well as the teaching methodology to interested folk for the purpose of making them advocates.

I often think to myself, What a privilege at this time in my life to be part of something that can help literally hundreds of thousands of women lift themselves out of poverty, cut infant mortality rates in half, even persuade the same women that God made them wonderfully and beautifully and values them highly.

Yesterday, Charleen sent me some photos of the first Women’s Cycle of Life training Holly Freitas had conducted among Maasai tribal women in Africa. Perhaps you will feel the same way David and I felt when we saw these photos. Both of us said, “Wow!” at the same time!

Wow, if you didn’t know it, is an exclamation of praise. (Even my four-year-old granddaughter says “Wow!”)

Let all the earth and everything that is in it praise His holy name. WOW!

I spy God!

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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I also asked Josephina, Janvier Habibama’s wife, who is about seven months pregnant with their fourth child, if she had laundry that needed doing. I’d told the boys who were dressed in sports shorts that if they were going to work in the yard the next day with their father, they would need warmer pants. Their English is perfect, so I heard the discussion from the backseat weighing the fact that if they wore long pants, their mama would have to do laundry.

I had sudden insight into a small apartment with five people, coin-operated washing machines in the basement, and not enough money to clean the dirty laundry. “Josephina, if you want to bring your laundry when I pick up Janvier tomorrow, you are more than welcome to use my machines.” So, she did. We fit one father, one pregnant mother, two active (and very polite) boys, and one young daughter plus two huge plastic yard-bags of laundry into my compact car.

Now, I remember what it is like to have four kids, house guests, a broken washing machine, and no money to repair it. I also remember the table in the basement where I tossed clean clothes when I was young and unorganized and where we all frantically rummaged to find the item we needed.

Josephina washed clothes all day, and there was so much laundry that when the Habibama family left at 5:00, there was still a dryer full of damp baby clothes (for the newborn-to-be) and a load filling the washing machine. So I carried a big box of baby clothes to church that Sunday along with another black plastic yard-sack of clean laundry. And, I was happy to do so.

Dirty laundry always makes me think of forgiveness. “Forgive your enemies,” taught Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount (check out Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7). This, of course, when we look at the catalogue of heinous actions human commit against one another, is nearly impossible—it is not natural to our human inclinations. Forgive? How?

Through six decades of life I have come to the conclusion that the old axiom is true, “To err is human; to forgive isdivine.” All we humans can do is to want to forgive; it is God who grants us the grace to forgive. (“How do you forgive that,” I often find myself thinking—“gang rapes, or betrayal, the murder of a child, genocide?”)

But, if we don’t find the way to forgive, find God’s gift to our battered souls, shattered beyond belief, often into disbelief, the “dirty laundry” of our emotional and psychological lives begins to pile up, we get smelly, can’t find anything to wear, we look inappropriately attired and feel inappropriately attired, lose our self-confidence, etc., etc. The effects of dirty laundry and what other people think of those of us who wear dirty laundry, are incalculably negative.

My husband David developed this spiritual exercise that he likes to call the “end-of-the-day” replay. Each night he pauses to think about the day he has just lived. He looks back, like the instant-replays called by sideline coaches or the quarterbacks of football teams. Then he asks, “Is there anyone I need to forgive today? Anyone I have offended and need to ask to forgive me? Do I need to make any amends tomorrow? Do I need to ask God to forgive me? Do I need to forgive myself?”

The end-of-the-day-replay makes forgiveness more doable, because it is making forgiveness a practice. We wash “dirty clothes” to disinfect them. We hang then on the line to dry or put them in the dryer. Then we fold everything the same day. The warmth from the sun (or the dryer) acts like a hot iron, pressing out the wrinkles and creases. Clean clothes get stacked in drawers and cupboards, preferably the same day they are washed and dried. They get hung neatly in closets. There are no more offending mounds on the laundry-room table.

That great sigh we feel when a dirty, messy task has finally been accomplished is the same sigh we feel when God steps near and helps us clean up our souls. Both of them are soul-sighs, and they indicate that we have accomplished something really wonderful, even something miraculous.

I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the every day occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Three times a year, I fly to Modesto, CA, which is east of San Francisco in the Central Valley. I serve on the Board of Directors of Medical Ambassadors International, and its headquarters are located in Salida. Since this is farm and orchard territory and the weather is climate, each season I visit yields its own fruit. Two weeks ago, in November, I again marveled at the profligacy of growth. Orange trees were ripening for their third harvest, and the signs at fruit and vegetable stands were advertising walnuts for sale. The walnut harvest had just been completed.

“Oh, let’s pick up some walnuts,” I remarked to my host. David and I had flown in a couple days early to do some video taping, some media consulting, and to fit in a day trip to Yosemite.

“What kind do you want?” our host asked. He was in the driver’s seat and volunteering his guide expertise since this National Park is a happy place for him. Climbing the mountains, El Capitan for one, pointing out water falls, spotting other climbers scaling the sides of sheer cliffs, treating guests to lunch in the lodge—these give him joy because he loves sharing the beauty and history of the park.

“Oh,” I replied, “I want enough for holiday baking—chopped walnuts—but I also want walnuts still in the shell.”

I’ve discovered that grade-school children often don’t know where food comes from. In fact, the 11-year-old son of our Thanksgiving meal guests who are refugees from Congo, actually held up a walnut he had plucked from the bowl and asked, “What are these?” My own grandson, 12 years old, inquired, “How do I open this?” I showed him how to use the red-handled hand pliers to crack the husks.

Our visit to Yosemite was on Wednesday, Thursday was spent taping with a dinner for the Board of Directors in the evening before our full board work day on Friday. I returned home from a long day to find a five-pound bag of unshelled walnuts on my bed and another smaller bag of walnut chips beside it. We had packed tightly coming out, and though I suspected this food bounty would send our baggage into the overweight range on the airlines scales, I was bringing home treasure and didn’t mind.

“How much do I owe you for the walnuts?” I asked during a lull in our mutually busy schedules.

My host smiled, then replied, “Uh, what walnuts? I don’t know what you’re talking about.” No use arguing, because I realized my friend was also taking pleasure in making time to give me the gift of something he knew I wanted.

So, David and I repacked our suitcases, fitting in the large bags, along with ten pomegranates from our hosts’ backyard tree (each fruit costs $1.99 here in Chicago), my board notes, and a handful of persimmons along with a persimmon-cookie recipe recommended by my hostess. We’d flown to San Francisco on United, but when I went to print out our boarding passes, I realized we’d be flying home on Continental—the two airlines are merging.

“Your bag is overweight,” said the curbside check-in agent. “We know,” said my husband. “How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing,” he explained. “You have Elite Access Status. No charge for the bags. No charge for the overweight.” Elite Access Status!—how did that happen? All I could figure was that the airlines don’t quite have their systems together as yet in this merger.

It is in these small things that we are reminded that love is all around us. There is love that a good God built into His creation so that we are fed and nourished by the beauty of it as well as the bounty of it. There are caring friends who house us and host us and carve out time to act as a day guide and share their own love of the world. There are people who delight to give us what we want.

Love is all around. I spy God!

————————————————————————————–

Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.

Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.

Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.

For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.

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