Archives for March 2012

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Cathie Clark is a friend who helps out in the Global Bag Project room and stretches her income, like we are all doing, by pinching pennies and surveying the sales at resale shops. But I don’t know anyone who has the spiritual gift of helps more than Cathie does.

So every so often, when David and I need a ride to the airport, we’ll give Cathie a call and if she can help, she cheerily provides rides to and pickups from O’Hare or Midway.

I am the type of person who hates to take this willingness of people for granted, so I am reluctant to overdo my requests. Yet there are times when we don’t want to take the money to hire a limo, or when none of our adult children can fit in another airport trip, when David has a conflict on his calendar or when our one family car is going in another direction than east toward the city.

I had to ask Cathie to pick me up early one Wednesday morning and then be ready to come past for me the next Saturday as I flew in from California arriving at O’Hare at midnight. This was a little hard for me to do, although Cathie never gives me the feeling that she is reluctant to provide this service. And David and I always try to cover her gas expenses.

As we were driving to O’Hare she actually said to me, “I love these airport rides.” Why in the world?, I wondered. “Oh it gives me an uninterrupted hour to chat with you,” she said.

Some of the best gifts in the world are really, really small, almost unnoticeable. Cathie is right. Instead of feeling hesitant about asking for a favor, I should be thinking, I will get to spend an uninterrupted hour with this friend. What a great gift!

Sometimes when people ask me to do certain things for them that I love to do, it affirms the gifts God has given to me to share. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are given to the body to be used for the body.

Next time I ask Cathie for a favor to drive me to the airport, I’ll try to think: This will give me an uninterrupted hour with this friend. Certainly this is one of God’s gifts to us all—time for friendship.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

My new acquaintance in California, Bryan, is a prize-winning chef. He is particularly renown for his pies, which have taken top awards in numerous cooking events. So when he invited me for dinner during my stay for the Medical Ambassadors International board of directors meeting, I said I would love to come but only if he would give me a cooking lesson in the kitchen at the same time we prepped for the meal.

“How would you feel about learning to make ravioli from scratch?” he asked. I felt great about that. So we embarked on an adventure creating Ravioli With Salmon Mixture accompanied by a side dish of fresh, red-stemmed chard cooked in a wok with fresh spinach. Oh, the Central Valley of California, which seems to have an overabundance of fresh produce in its markets no matter what time of the year I visit.

Bryan mixed the dough in front of me, and then grew politely impatient with my kneading techniques (which are limited, I admit). He coached me to the place where the concoction “was smooth like a baby’s bottom.” The kneaded dough was set aside in a bowl, covered with a cloth, and left to rest for about 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, we prepared the salmon mixture. Two fresh salmon steaks were gently deboned (a few little stickers here and there) with the help of small pincer pliers (kitchen use only, of course). Then with a sharp knife, we cut the salmon into bite-sized pieces. The best that I can remember, we gently mixed in two ounces of crème fraîche, eight ounces of clotted ricotta cheese, and added salt and pepper to taste, as well as half a bunch of fresh chopped cilantro.

Bryan started the sauce on the stove, two pints of cream (I’ll have to check the amount) with one-half jar of condensed chicken stock (I’ll have to look for the brand), then the ingredient, the piece resistance, kaffir limes leaves cut from a bush by the outside pool, chopped and stirred into the braising pan.

By this time, Bryan had hooked his pasta tool to his Kitchen Aid mixer and I was given a demonstration. Cuts of the dough (rested by now) were formed and folded into oblongs, then pressed several times through the pasta attachment. We laid long oblongs on the cutting board, pressed out circles, filled each with the salmon mixture, dabbed water on the edge of the lower circle of pasta to create a sticky surface, then pressed the top circle down tightly so it wouldn’t split in the boiling pan of water on the stove. In time, we had enough ravioli circlets with dough and mixture to spare. Bryan gingerly pushed them into the hot water while rotating the cream sauce with a turn of his fist.

I had washed and drained the fresh spinach while Bryan heated the wok, but when he instructed me to cut out the red stems from the Swiss chard, I protested. I love the color and grow Swiss chard because of that red; he felt it sometimes is bitter. We compromised. He kept some part of the stems to chop as color accent on the chard and spinach green.

In what seemed like minutes, we were at the table, grace had been given, and the food had been served up. It was exquisite—nothing (NOTHING) like fresh ingredients.

All I can remember about this is that what I kept saying was, “This is so much fun!” What I kept feeling was an intense, delighted, exquisite happiness.

Sometimes doing the things we love the most brings us closest to the God we hold dear. We have to remember that despite what we might think as insufferable humans who always default to negative positions, God is happy when His children are happy.

I need to remember to schedule in some completely happy moments doing things I love doing, not only the things I need to be doing.

1. The sewing machine has been refurbished. I even have a friend with the same-model machine who is a former home-economics teacher and who is willing to teach me how to use it. Get going. Be happy.
2. The spring in Chicago is early and warm. I lose myself in the garden. Get going. Be happy.
3. I love to read. Set a day aside just to read. Don’t go into the office. Be ecstatic.
4. Take those canvases waiting empty in the storerooms in the basement. Paint away.

Make your Maker glad. Make a list of all the things you love to do. Then do them.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

In California recently I was staying at the home of our friends John and Madelle Payne, whose gracious hospitality always makes me renew my intent to be more hospitable and a better hostess myself.

They left me on Thursday morning alone (what a gift) and informed me who would pick me up to take me to the first planning meeting of that day. I read, and luxuriated in Scripture and wrote in my prayer journal and basically basked in the fact that I had a whole morning I could spend in bed. A rare treat in my life these days, although in the past, in the child-raising years, I claimed a good couple of days a month for bed days. My theory was that my body needed to restore itself due to all the clamor and chaos and demands of living in a home with one world-changing husband and four energetic and active offspring.

When I gathered my books and notes together, got dressed, and then made the bed, I realized I didn’t know where I had placed my cell phone. The battery was low and I needed to recharge it before I left the house that morning. In fact, I had just received a call from a friend, so I knew I had brought it with me from Chicago. Where had I put the silly thing (which is always eluding me somehow)? I looked under the bed, under my board of directors’ notebook, under my journal, patted down the covers, prodded with my fingers into the space between the frame and the mattress. No cell phone. Then I repeated the process again. I kept remembering that the battery was low. If I didn’t find it soon, I might not be able to hear a call signal.

Oh, no problem, I thought. I’d just use the Payne’s landline and call my cell. No landline. My lovely, relaxed morning was quickly descending into a whirling swirl of concern about finding the phone (which I would need as I traveled home and then onto Philadelphia). Surely, quietly, I heard that inner reminder. Stop fussing. You’ll find it when you find it. You are ruining this quiet hour with all this searching. Obediently, I stopped, sat myself down and resumed the contemplative posture that had been feeding my soul.

When my friend rang the doorbell, I greeted her with the rather obnoxious remark, “I need you to call my cell phone.” We went into the bedroom, she called, and we could actually hear the phone ring. We looked around the floor, patted the covers, and went so far as to unmake the bed. She called the number again, and aha!—this time we found the little slim-line phone that takes up so little space it can’t be felt when two women do a “body-search” on the bedding. It had slipped between the covers—taking a nap, I suppose.

Finding things is so much a part of my life. My husband rarely searches for his keys, never hunts, of course, for his purse, but I am always looking for something. Papers get lost on my desk (and if I am organized and file things away, I can’t remember where I hid them). So I really, really appreciate the analogy to the fact that if we are going to find the God who is always looking for us, we must meet him in that hunt by making an effort to identify His work in our lives, moment by moment, day by day, year after year.

Though I’ve kept a journal recording the daily interventions of the divine in my life for almost 40 years, writing these blogs have brought me to a richer realization than I’ve ever experienced before. Taking time to do more than just jot down reminders of God’s loving work on a list has made my God hunt journey even more full.

I lose things, like cell phones, between the covers, but I am a really good hunter. I know much of life is filled with finding things. Why would it be any different with finding God? I must set myself aside in order to see, in order to hear, in order to find. It takes some time, but this hunt is certainly one of the greatest pleasures of my whole life.

I spy God (again and again)!

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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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

After participated in some 250 listening groups, most of which I have facilitated, I am absolutely convinced that it is time to write a book about the profound experience this has been in my life (and in the lives of the many who have also participated in the small-group process). However, I simply could not get the project started.

I have plenty to say, have a bibliography, have conducted interviews with many of the participants, have written white papers to send to those who are also intrigued by either learning more or starting listening groups, but I simply have not been able to capture that intriguing approach that draws the reader into the first chapter and through the pages, chapter by chapter, until the last words draw conclude so satisfactorily that the reader closes the book and puts it aside with a sigh, wishing there was just a little more.

I’ve had friends chide me that I’m not writing any books and publishing them—but I tell you—until those first sentences come as a gift, something wonderful that you the writer yourself would like to read—it’s a little like pushing a shovel into dry clay. The creative earth is just not ready no matter how many attempts you make to force the steel into the compacted cement-like soil.

Last week I took a handful of paperback books with me to read on the airplane and in the airports in the literal hours that it takes to travel from Illinois to California, then back again. One book by Brother David Steindl-Rast, A Listening Heart: The Spirituality of Sacred Sensuousness, had just bogged me down. I’d loved other works by this Catholic writer, but somehow, just did not get into the reading groove with this one. Perhaps that was because Steindl-Rast is a monk and makes a point of addressing the rational for the monastic experience to other monks in this book.

But determined not to leave half-read books lying around, I took it along with me as I traveled and found (surprisingly) that I was loving what I was reading. This must fit into some sort of principle: Give every dull book a second chance. It may not be the book’s fault. Listen to this:

“Once our heart is anchored in silence, we will be able to listen even while we are speaking. … Silence will make us hear appeals which noise drowns out: the sighs of devastated forests, the groans of lab monkeys with wired skulls, the sobs of mothers with babies at their emaciated breasts. We will begin to hear the truth that sets us free. As long as one creature in this world is oppressed and exploited, oppressor and victim alike lack freedom. Yet, ‘None so deaf as one who will not listen,’ as the proverb says.”

Somewhere in my re-reading of this book, I noted down the phrase listen with your fingertips, indicating a total absorption in the process of hearing something or someone, in which the whole body leans forward in rapt attention in order to fully hear.

Several mornings I realized that could be a wonderful title for a book on listening: I tried it out, Listen With Your Fingertips. It would also make a great opening paragraph and a first chapter.

And so in this way, from what seems like nowhere, the gift is given, “Some people feel like we listen with our ears; others insist that we listen even with our fingertips.” In a week, after months of struggle to begin a book, my creative self is aimed and pointed. I am ready to go.

But that is the point of Steindl-Rast’s writing: All the world around us is gift-given. It is we who must learn to listen.

It is we who must learn to see. “Look at the stars! Look, look up at the skies! O look…!” declares Gerard Manley Hopkins breathlessly in his poem The Starlit Night.

It is we who must make a practice of being alive in the world. “Most people’s glorious gates of perception creak on rusty hinges. How much of the splendor of life is wasted on us because we plod along half-blind, half-deaf, with all our senses throttled, and numbed by habituation. How much joy is lost on us. How many surprises we miss. It is as if Easter eggs had been hidden under every bush and we were too lazy to look for them.”

It is we who must hear the whisper of the title in our hearts and realize that at last, it is time to start.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Sue Higgins is a true intercessor. When she says she’ll pray for me, she does. Everyone needs a Sue Higgins in their life. So I try to stay connected as much as I can because I know I need Sue’s giftedness of covering her friends with her prayers.

Two weekends ago, I returned on a Saturday, after a long day of air travel from San Francisco to Chicago, arriving at 12:00 p.m. I spent Sunday at home, for turnaround time, then drove the car to O’Hare early on Monday morning to fly to Philadelphia where I was scheduled to be picked up by my husband and two grandsons, one 17 and the other 11, both of whom had studied a unit of American History this last term. David and I thought it would be an opportune way to reinforce their learning by visiting the historical sites around Philly and Washington, D.C.

A couple weeks before this trip, our friend, a former United Airlines employee, e-mailed me with the news that she suddenly discovered she had five “buddy” tickets that she had to use (or lose) before March 31st. Was I going anywhere that I could fly United and she could give me one or two of these passes? However, with the merger between United and Continental, none of the employees were sure of how this all worked anymore.

I’d already booked my tickets on American Airlines to Philadelphia, but a quick exercise in totaling figures revealed that even with a change fee and paying fuel and tax surcharges on the buddy pass, I would save a couple hundred dollars in applying this ticket to a May trip to California. So I called American, my friend booked my pass (still quite confused and nervous about the procedure) and I trusted that on Monday morning I would be able to get a standby seat on the flight to Pennsylvania.

While checking my e-mail in the interregnum between the California trip and the trip to Pennsylvania, I noticed on Sunday that Sue had written, “Praying for you as you travel today, that your flights will go smoothly and that you will arrive safely.”

I appreciated this notice, thinking that it was so like Sue to remember me, but didn’t realize how much I would appreciate it once I got traveling again.

Something about being tired after a few days of board meetings, after long journeys, and the anxiety of my former United employee friend about the booking process, left me vulnerable to the travel anxiety dobbie (you know dobbies, don’t you?—they’re the little anxious gremlins, green or grey, who creep into our vulnerabilities and cause inner panic and distress). The moment I parked my car at 6:00 a.m. in the remote Parking Lot F, caught the shuttle bus from booth 5, marking on my ticket that I was between row H and J, I began to be nervous about whether I would make it out of Chicago or have to play the “Going From Gate to Gate” game, to catch a seat on a plane headed east.

Nothing I could do would settle this churning concern. I couldn’t pray my way to calm. I seemed to be too tired to remind myself effectively of how many times God had been my traveling companion and really, all bookings are always in His hands.

Then I remembered, I remembered the e-mail notice that came a day too early but actually right on time. My friend Sue Higgins had prayed for me and something had prompted her to insert her prayer into my e-mail notices, and I relaxed and just let her prayers cover my weariness, the United/Continental merger, the small airplane at the gate and what looked like too-numerous passengers waiting to board. Sue had prayed. I was covered. I could just take a deep breath and relax. My prayers might be like wisps of trailing smoke this Monday morning, but Sue had prayed.

There were four of us listed for standby on the overhead screen; I got the last available seat. I was the only passenger at the gate after everyone else had boarded, but Sue had prayed, and the gate attendant finally called my name. I arrived in Philadelphia on time as scheduled to hear the enthusiastic reports of husband and grandsons about their previous day’s tour of the Gettysburg battleground.

In the “we believe” coterie of faith, when one is prayer-less, another is prayer-ful. When one is weary, another is rested. When one is filled with fear, anxiety and turmoil, another is calm, and at peace and at a place of profound faith. “Got you covered,” David will say to me sometimes when my pace has been more frantic than I know it should be. “Got you covered.”

The work of God is so evident to me in this collaborative community of faith. Sue Higgins sent me an e-mail one day early letting me know that she was praying for me as I traveled. And I gave up the silly trauma that can come from not knowing what is going to happen and thought, Sue’s already prayed for me. She’s got this covered.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

David and I have volunteered to organize the prayer time before each Sunday morning service. So far, for the most part, he and I have been the only ones praying. We belong to a small church, which meets in a local school gymnasium, and the people who have the time to come 45 minutes early are generally setting up sound equipment, organizing childcare, unfolding chairs, mounting the cloths on the communion table—well, you get the idea. We have lots of young couples in our church with small children and David and I well remember what it was like getting everyone ready on Sunday morning (A lot of work!).

So, David and I have prayed together (in the teacher’s lounge) for months—mostly just the two of us. We are at the stage in life where this is no longer a boring task, and we also love to have time to pray together. We feel that this work is as crucial as everything that is mentioned above. We are also grateful when, from time to time, someone else joins us.

However, because we believe that the work of prayer is the work of the whole church, I began to organize a schedule in which types of prayer could be highlighted for 15 minutes each Sunday morning, then we would spend the next 20 minutes in intercession for the worship, the people, the children’s programs, our members, and the school and neighborhood in which we serve.

February 26: Who feels strongly about prayer stations during Eucharist? Would you like to be on prayer teams? Have you had a journey into healing prayer? Are you someone who finds yourself praying for the world and the people in it (you may have the gift of intercession.) Can we set up prayer teams? Let’s respond to last Sunday’s challenge to pray for miracles.

March 6: Who feels strongly about a burden, or a need, or a personal crisis? Let’s make a list of our prayer concerns, date them, and see if a praying community (two or three gathered together) has better results than people just praying alone? What have you learned about making requests of God? Of course, we will pray about these concerns.

March 11: What do you know about prayers of confession? Since Lent is a time for self-examination, repentance and confession, let’s make sure we are building this spiritual practice into our journey. So what do you know? What has happened when you have confessed and repented? What does Scripture teach us?

March 18: What do you know about journaling your prayers? There are probably as many different ways of prayer journaling as there are people. What has worked for you?
Bring a journal and share this with those of us who get started and stop, who want to begin but don’t know how.

Let’s gather together in the teacher’s lounge and delight in the many different ways different people keep a record of their daily (weekly? monthly? yearly?) prayers.

March 25: What kind of prayer reminders have you discovered help you to develop and keep the habit of prayer? Rubber bands on your wrist? Coins in the pocket? A daily prayer guide? If something is working for you, let the rest of us know.

Let’s gather together in the teacher’s lounge for a show-and-tell of practical helps.

April 1: Have you developed an attitude of gratitude? Studies show that grateful people are actually physically and emotionally more healthy than ungrateful people. So let’s go at this spiritual practice! Do any of you keep a gratitude journal? How has this worked and what has it done for you?

Let’s gather together in the teacher’s lounge for an initial plunge into healthy spiritual practice.

April 8: How do you define worship prayer? And how is this different from Thanksgiving? What helps you know when you are really worshipping? Is it just an emotional feeling or is it something all together different than that?

Help! Today is Easter—an ultimate day of worship on the church calendar—let’s make sure our hearts are ready for worship. What do you know about worship that the rest of us need to know?

April 15: Who among us has fasted spiritually and with success? How long have you fasted? What did you learn? What if someone has health problems? How can they fast?
This one is hard.

April 22: Who has had prayers answered? Let’s look at the prayer request list we have
been gathering and see what God has done for us as a people of faith over the last nine weeks.

One of the elders of the church joined us this Sunday, and we were glad to have her. Seeing the handwriting on the wall—that I was going to have to take the initiative—I began asking people who I believe have the gifts of discernment and compassion if they would join us on our prayer teams.

Last Sunday morning early after a busy, busy week, I finally pulled a small whiteboard, the wreath stand I use by the front door during seasonal changes and found a nearly dried-up marker and made a sign. Most of the 100 or so people who come on Sunday mornings don’t even know where the teacher’s lounge is. My sign read:

PROCEED WITH CAUTION!
PRAYER WORK AHEAD
Join us in the Teacher’s Lounge
9:45-10:20

 I drew a primitive arrow, filled it in with the evaporating felt marker as much as I was able, that hopefully, this scratchy sign conveyed the teacher’s lounge was down the hall.

However, as we were driving to the school, I kept hearing that little word nudging me: If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. So I left the makeshift sign and the stand I had pulled out of the dirt by the front walk and washed hurriedly with a dish cloth. No, no, no—God’s work is always orderly, deliberate and planned. If it wasn’t ready because I wasn’t ready, then the timing for this announcement and this scheme wasn’t right either.

The sign is still in the back of my car—I’ll pull it out this morning—but it keeps greeting me with the warning:Proceed with caution! Proceed with caution!

Gentle reminder from God?—probably.

I’m paying attention.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

I got in the habit of setting our dining-room table so it was ready whenever company stops past. Whenever we eat at the table, we wash the dishes, and instead of storing them in a kitchen cupboard, we simply place them on the table. If David an I are eating alone, we sit at the far end, where I can look out on the yard and where drivers in passing cars can look through our un-curtained window and see the two of us (or the six to eight of us) sharing a meal together, breaking bread.

“Don’t your dishes get dusty sitting there?” someone asked me recently. I suppose I should consider the dust factor. “Not real dusty,” I answered my friend. We do turn the plates over frequently with guests coming and going. And if they get a little glazed on top, I take a damp rag to them and that takes care of the problem—much simpler than putting dishes into the cupboard, taking them out again and setting a table.

The table gets changed whenever we head into a new season. And just so I don’t have to construct a centerpiece cold as well as find the appropriate clothes, napkins and place settings, I have started to take photo shots with my new cell phone. (I don’t know how to access the Internet, but I know how to text my grandchildren and use my camera.)

This is important to me because I think the set table always says, “We are waiting for you. You are welcome here in our home at any time. You can never come and surprise us. All is at the readiness. Sit and commune and dine with us.”

Actually, these are the same invitations God repeats into the world, over and over and over again. I’m just doing what He does—setting the table—and saying what He says—come on in; be with Us.”

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

This morning I brought a quiet lament to God, though I cloaked it carefully as a kind of reminder:

“Father, all my extra time has been taken (I know, I know—there’s always the ‘weary’ time I don’t use well) with the Global Bag Project and the Women’s Cycle of Life. This is all uncompensated time—no one pays me for the hours I put in every week on each project. But because they use my entrepreneurial, strategizing capacities (which You have given to me) and because it is a joy to do good in the world, I am happy to go without any pay.

“However, I can’t get some of the personal stuff done around here. Many of the Christmas decorations are still up or packed away and staged in the garage—crowding the car—before I can haul them up to the attic. Do You think You could collaborate in some way with me (and please not next year—I know You work in unfathomable ways, but my timetable is to get everything labored and stored in an attic where the corners have been laid with a cheap particleboard flooring—this year) and help me get to what I don’t seem to be able to get to because I’m putting so much time into these other overwhelming (though worthy) projects?”

Before leaving the house, I looked at the wreath on the coffee table that sits in front of the fireplace. I had stuffed the artificial circle of greens with real pomegranates I had brought home from California last November, copper Christmas balls, sienna-colored feather puffs I had bought at Hobby Lobby and medium-sized alliums, which I grow and harvest every year, spraying them whatever color is needed in dried bouquets. Cranberry red for the winter arrangement by the front door; apple green to act in contrast to the other ingredients that make up the coffee-table Advent wreath.

The apple-green alliums had been tossed out of the wreath, onto the carpet, onto the coffee table and were now shedding their heads and seeds wherever they had fallen. My son’s Bengal cat, Cyrano, had obviously had quite a morning. (We are cat-sitting while that family is taking a spring break in the Nashville, TN, area.)

This, Lord, is not what I meant! I shot a look at the ceiling.

Hah! Hah! I heard back. (I really did hear it clear as day, though not with my ears; I heard it with my heart.) Hah! Hah! Don’t you get the joke? You were having a little pity-party and I’m just giving you a little hand via my friend Cat.

Now I’d have to clean up the Christmas decorations, which—on the coffee table at least (thanks to Cat)—had become a mess.

Yes, finally. You got the joke, hah! Hah! Now you’ll have to clean it up.

I’ve been reading the book Tattoos on the Heart by Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. I copied down this wonderful quote: “Behold the One beholding you, and smiling.”

Obviously, this was appropriate to my cat in the Advent-wreath scenario. But when I copied it down, I wasn’t think of God beholding me and LAUGHING.

(Yeah! Yeah! I got the joke.)

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

During this season of Lent, the time of the church calendar when Christians prepare their hearts and souls for Easter, I have been personalizing the errors mentioned in the Litany of Penitence, which liturgical congregations pray on Ash Wednesday. I’ve been impressed that I have not been considering my soul as I ought, and this formal prayer of repentance was a good place to begin.

So last week, I took the first confession and began to work with it. “We confess to You, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the price, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives.”

This is what I wrote in an extended time of self-examination early one morning (about 3:30 a.m.) when the house and the phone and the world outside are silent.

I confess to You my past unfaithfulness…

• Watching too much mindless television; comes from fatigue; when I sleep only five hours per night, I collapse in the afternoon and try to stay awake until 9:00, but these are wasted hours, which I fill with movies or television, captured by my physical ennui.
• Not working to keep my body strong, which sometimes helps me sleep and eliminates sleep deprivation. With good sleep I can go strong all day, and keep functioning in the evening. I know this, but don’t work on it.
• Not working @what it is You have put in my mind to do; writing, painting, design projects, etc.

I confess to You my past unfaithfulness…

• Not working out areas of spiritual obedience
  • better and more regular Bible study
  • Sabbath Eve. practice
  • reading daily offices of prayer with David

For all these things (unfaithfulness; lack of obedience) I am truly sorry and do most humbly repent. Strength, please, to carry out my desires before You and to carry out Your desires for me.

This is work, isn’t it, and I am only on the first sin of unfaithfulness, then there are sub-sins (the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives.) Oh, dear.

Today during the Eucharistic service, a young woman stood beside the cross that is at the back of the school gym where we meet to worship. “Can I pray with you?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she answered. “How can I pray?”

“Pray for my many areas of unfaithfulness.” Well, I certainly knew what that was about. So we prayed.

I suspect that one of the reasons so many of us have a hard time discovering the work of God in our lives is that we have not done the work of self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting and self-denial. When we do that work, God is there, standing beside a young woman hugging the Cross in the back of the elementary-school gym where a certain people gather to worship.

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 everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:

Sometimes just a little word of encouragement goes a long way. The smallest commendation, casually spoken, can warm you for days. I often hear myself saying, weeks after the affirmation, “Do you know what So-and-so said to me?”

I realized that due to my busy schedule that I had left all the person-to-person contact between the Global Bag Project U.S. office and our Global Bag Project Kenyan manager up to Carla Boelkens, the GBP Director. (We have created a small microenterprise model where seamstresses sew handmade reusable utility bags that we are marketing here in the States. We hope, of course, to provide income for vulnerable women, living beneath the poverty line, so they can feed their families, pay their rent and send their children to school.) In fact, our tagline is“Buy a Bag. Feed a Family. Preserve the Planet.” (Well, “preserve the planet” may be a little grandiose—but if everyone carried one of our beautiful cloth bags made from East African cloth, it would certainly diminish the use of plastic sacks.)

Carla Skypes and excels at keeping up her relational contacts, even when people are a world’s distance away. But I realized recently that I might have a viewpoint to share with Mary Ogalo, our Kenyan Manager, that would be different from my co-workers, and one morning I shot her a long e-mail with a list of things we were working on that I thought would encourage her so far away from our Global Bag Project U.S. discussions.

She got back right away, thanking me for keeping her up-to-date. Then she made a report of her own. It seems that a voluntourism group of 16 Canadian women had stopped by the GBP sewing room in Nairobi, left donations for 7 sewing machines, then traveled to the village of Mary’s husband, George. Mary writes, “It was an amazing meeting of 2 worlds resulting in a dairy goat project.”

Well, I had written to encourage Mary, but after receiving her e-mail went around for days saying, “Mary Ogalo wrote. They have received donations for 7 new sewing machines, and the same women started a dairy goat project in George’s village.”

Mary Ogalo

God is so present when we speak words of kindness and affirmation to one another. It actually does set off a physiological response in the soulish part of our being. Just a small word or two … “7 sewing machines and a dairy goat project” and I was happy, warmed, grateful, lifted. And these aren’t even our goats (having to do with the Global Bag Project). They are Mary’s George’s village’s goats. But I am as glad as if they were our own.

It’s amazing, isn’t it, what a long way a small word of encouragement can go.

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