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:
 
 
 
It annoys me that every Christmas season, we are almost the only house on the block that does not hang Christmas lights outside. I believe the Scripture that says,

“All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all the people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” John 1:3-5.

It is my persuasion that despite the belief system (or more correctly, non-belief system) of house decorators, shining lights at Christmas, particularly in the darkening north where we live, are a symbol of that light coming into the darkness. So, I am miffed that something always prohibits us from lighting that symbol outside our doors. (We are, after all, one of the Christian families on our street!).

Now, I am not talking about “Griswolding.” As a tradition, our son Jeremy and his wife and children drive through the streets of our town of West Chicago, awarding “Griswolds” (which the city also awards, apparently without our knowing anything about this). “Griswolds” refer to the National Lampoon’s Vacation comedy-film series that were originally inspired by National Lampoon magazine. The series primarily features the misadventures of the Griswold family, whose attempts to enjoy vacations and holidays are plagued with continual disasters and strangely ridiculous predicaments.

In an attempt to make the perfect Christmas, for instance, Clark Griswold (played by Chevy Chase) decorates the outside of his house with 250 strands of lights with 100 bulbs on each strand for a total of 25,000 light bulbs, enough to make the power company turn on their auxiliary nuclear generator. Clark also annoys his snobby next-door neighbors, Todd Chester, and in all that resides the comedy.

I frankly don’t want a “Griswold” scheme. I just want some tastefully understated lights that lead the way to the front door (which I am generally able to make hospitable) and glow out toward the street.

This year, however, we had unseasonably warm weather for Chicago (in the 40s and 50s), so I was able to get outside and set the spotlights into the ground before it froze. A newly hung trellis allowed me to secure the bright Christmas blue NOEL banner, made by a fabric-artist friend, but stored in a trunk for the last five years. I placed two tabletop trees with their own lights in summer garden pots on either side of the step leading to the front porch. And, when I turned on the light switches—one in the garage and one in the front hall—the lights softly illuminated the outside. It was beautiful.

Could this really be the David R. Mains domicile? No fuses blew. No bulbs cracked. No spotlights tipped over to crash on their flat faces.

On Hawthorne Lane in West Chicago, light shines in the darkness.

“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5.

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-100)

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:
 
 
 
Since we were home the whole month of December, since it was a Mains family Christmas year (our kids spend the even-numbered years with their in-laws), since this was the first time in nine years when I hadn’t been planning and leading the annual Advent Retreat of Silence, I decided to decorate the house from top to bottom.

Now there is some reason to this madness; I’ve spent the entire year knowing that both my parents died at age 69, which I will turn in January 2012. This is not a morbid consideration for me—I feel prepared to die and don’t fear it (a sign on my household desk reads, “I don’t fear tomorrow. I have seen yesterday and I love today”). It’s more a matter of wondering what my parents would have done differently (what would anyone do differently) if they knew they had only one more year to live.

I do not want to leave behind a mess that my family has to spend weeks wading through in order to settle the estate (such as it is). So, part of my decision to decorate from top to bottom is one that entails a process of purging, reorganizing and relabeling.

“I can’t believe you’re cleaning your attic during the weeks leading up to Christmas,” said a friend. Since I had already organized it three summers back, the task is not so monumental as it sounds. But, I’ve also discovered a lovely secret to tackling onerous tasks. The secret is this: You must learn to love the work.

Do I love filling the house with Christmas beauty, or don’t I? I love it.

Do I love having organized drawers, closets and attics, or not? I love it.

Do I love getting rid of extra strings of lights we no longer use, the old tree that has been in the box unused since 2004 (I always put the date on the label so I know if I am using whatever is in those green and red plastic storage bins)? Yes, I really love ridding the attic of extra boxes.

This year, in case of early forgetfulness setting in, or in case of my children having to sort through the attic, I thought I’d even put together a clipboard explaining that the attic is divided into four seasons: Summer is on the immediate right-hand side, Winter is on the immediate left-hand side, Spring is on the middle right-hand side, and Fall is behind that.
Down the middle of the attic are canning supplies, picnic hampers and fans. I do have one woebegone corner to the far-left back, but I’ll tackle that when the weather warms again.

The strange thing about doing what you do out of love is that everything changes. I’ve put Christmas music on the CD player and listened to the joyful melodies of well-loved hymns. A friend and I had a baking morning together, laughing and sharing recipe secrets. As I’ve decorated, I’ve repaired along the way. The hinge on my sewing box, for instance, had come unscrewed. I found those small screwdrivers with the quarter-inch heads and fixed the brass hinge to the wooden back. I moved the button and clasp on a too-small waistline.

Moreover, because I am choosing to love what I do, I am blissfully happy. An aesthetic being with a demanding eye, I am deeply and sweetly pleasured by harmony of line, by balance of forms, and in this pleasure, I experience God’s love and approval.

Don’t ask me why—I don’t really know. But choosing to love the work this season leading up to Christmas, tearing apart the attic, decorating every room in the house (I think I may pick up one of those small wreaths and fix it to the front of the car), I feel His pleasure. This may be one of the best Christmases ever!

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-099)

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:
 
 
 
The Christmas responsibilities in our family divide up this way: David does all the Christmas shopping and orders gifts for friends. I decorate the house and do the holiday baking and meals. David cleans up after Christmas dinner. He also oversees the December calendar and purchases tickets (with extras, so we can invite old or new friends).

This year he purchased tickets to see The Nativity at Goodman Theater in Chicago. I saw an advertisement on television and realized it was a black performance group (Congo Square Theatre Company), but I was not prepared to be next to the only white folk in the audience. However, for me, since we worked for ten years in the inner city of Chicago, and attended an African-American church in the suburbs for six years, it felt like we were coming home. And, guess what, the audience dresses up. No sloppy excuse for casual here. There were heels and furs and fancy clothes, suits and ties. I loved it.

Inspired by Langston Hughes, one of the most important writers and thinkers of the Harlem Renaissance, this performing troupe attempts to celebrate what is best in this black life and culture.

The music moved through traditional Christmas music rendered in jazz and soul began to announce that “Christmas is coming.” With little deviation from the scriptural storyline or even from the exact words of the biblical narrative, the artists danced and swayed across the stage, their voices soaring with the earthy and true-toned musicality of church-experienced musicians.

It felt so good to be in a place where the Gospel was unabashedly presented, where the artists were comfortable enough to let a really good story tell itself. Tears began to well up in my eyes. I wiped them from my cheeks. My granddaughter, Joscelyn, grabbed my hand and squeezed. I looked at David and his eyes were teary. We, as well as many in the audience, were raising their hands.

Then Gabriel began to preach. She quoted the Scripture verbatim and the crowd began to respond. “Yes,” they said. “Preach it.”

It may have been Goodman Theater in the heart of the theatre district in Chicago. But, as far as I was concerned, we had been to church with our dear sisters and brothers. Christmas was not only coming, it had arrived, baby. It was here.

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-098)

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:
 
 
 
For years now, whenever I take a bath, the water turns a translucent grayish-black. This is most concerting, because I think of a warm bath as a kind of non-sacramental form of baptism—at least a reminder that as a Christian, I have willingly entered the waters of baptism as a living metaphor of my life, death and resurrection in Jesus Christ.

A bath washes away not only the dirt of gardening, the dust and cobwebs of rummaging in the attic or in the basement, it soothes away achiness, comforts a disordered soul, and eases a too-active mind into sleep—either for the night or for a nap in the afternoon.

So, a bath that leaves a residue in the tub after the water has drained offends my sensibilities regarding the sacred meaning of cleansing and purifying.

When we had the water heater replaced two summers back, the plumber disengaged the water softener. “This just ain’t doing nothing for you, ma’am. Might as well turn it off.”

Even though the blackened water had existed before he disconnected that tank, I was anxious to purchase a new unit. This December my husband gave me a new water softener as my Christmas gift—I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more!

And, since the water is still a little grey, I’m thinking we probably need to replace the inside well-pump—we have well water with a high iron content. But, my baths are much, much better (as well as the kitchen-sink dishwater). We have lived in our home for 37 years, after all.

When I think that all around the world, the poor often have trouble drawing water. When they find a water source that is not polluted or putrefied, someone has to haul it, often for miles. My grey-black water is nothing compared to what others face when clean water is needed to drink, or to wash their hands, to bathe their children or to scrub clothes.

God is a God of clean water: He created it, He sanctified it for bathing and employed it as a sign of purification from sins. He commands, “Wash your hands your sinners and purify your hearts.” But more than anything, water is used as imagery to help us humans understand that God not only is the source of clean and pure physical water, He is also the source of spiritual cleansing: “The water that I give will become … a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The assurance in all this is that God’s Spirit within is experienced as a mysterious ever-renewed source, upwelling in fullness of life.

This is a great Advent meditation, one that fits with John the Baptist’s cry, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” Advent, the season before Christmas, is a time for bathing.

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-097)

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:
 
 
 
A Scripture reading from Morning Prayer last week gave me some pause: Why would the compiler include that reading in this second week of Advent?

“Near the cross of Jesus, stood his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary of Magdela. Seeing his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near her, Jesus said to his mother, ‘Woman, this is your son.’ Then to the disciple he said, ‘This is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his home.” (John 19:25-27)

Don’t you think that’s an odd Scripture for the season leading up to Christmas? It seems to me it would be more suitable for the Lenten season, which leads to Easter. And yet, Christ Himself compares His death to a kind of birth:

“When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her hour as come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world.” (John 16:21-22)

In fact, this imagery is intertwined throughout much of the Old and the New Testament.

After years of ministry, I know the season of Christmas is often the hardest part of the year for many. That first holiday after the death of a loved one is filled with the angst of ragged emotional surprises. Instead of celebration, the season is laden with jugular attacks, then, to be reminded in Advent—as we look toward the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child—that there is an agony that accompanies love, the agony of giving birth, the puzzlement of raising an exceptional child, the sword that pierces a mother’s soul when she sees him die.

How fitting to be reminded in Advent—that Jesus, while enduring the torture of crucifixion, tenderly, tenderly remembered His mother, a woman who after His death would need protection and shelter and comfort. Birth and life—aren’t they always commingled? A woman faces near-death in order to give life. A Son enters death in order to provide everlasting life.

What a mystery it all is—and what a wonder! 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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-096)

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’tcha 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!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-095)

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!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-094)

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-093)

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-092)

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-091)

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-090)

(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.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-088)

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 is divine.” 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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-089)

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!
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-087)

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-086)

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:
 
 
 
It has taken a lifetime for me to learn to leave well.

Going on a journey, preparing for a five-day trip, getting ready to take a vacation, heading off for the weekend—any of these are cause for disruption in my equanimity.

Suddenly, it seems as though there is so much to do to get ready to go. Part of this has something to do with the house I want to return to. I want it clean and welcoming. I want the beds made, the laundry done, the work for the ministry caught up. I don’t want to return to face small or large disasters.

So, weird things kick in psychologically before I go. Who cares if the car is vaccumed out, the garage put in order, the garden beds raked?—this is all work that is not crucial—it will wait. Suddenly, when getting ready to leave, I care. I care that I haven’t gotten to the tasks that I’ve neglected to do for days or weeks or months. A frantic-getting-ready-to-leave bunny out of Alice in Wonderland begins to chant, “I’m late. I’m late. For a very important date.” In my case, the very important date is everything in my life that has been left undone—all of which I suddenly see when I’m getting ready to leave home.

A few rules have helped me with this sudden dislocation of priorities.

1. I ask myself the question, “Is this really germane, is it really important to the
process of my leaving?”

If it’s not really important, it can wait—the dirty laundry, the car, the garden, the garage—until I get home, at which time I will promptly forget how urgent it was to get it all done.

2. Then, I work to get everything in the office and house done by late afternoon
before the morning that I leave.

This gives me a whole evening to pack, to go over my notes, to pack my traveling office bag that holds the computer or the papers I want to take with me—and then to also get a good night’s sleep.

Leaving well. I often wonder if the frantic effort that besets me has anything to do with the end of life when I will leave permanently. Maybe this last-minute boost before trips is an acting out, a foreshadowing of an inner desire to leave this life well, to not have regrets (if I have time to consider my life when it does end) that I have not done more to put things in order—in the relational world as well as in the material world.

If so, then I have some work to do—to make the final departure a good departure—not fraught with those anxious examinations, i.e., “Why didn’t I...?” “Why didn’t I...?”

Lord, help me to learn to leave well,
all those little journeys along with my
final departure. Teach me what is necessary
to finish—and what doesn’t matter if I
leave it undone. Help all my departures
to be conducted in peace.
                                                             Amen.

I am improving. For this last journey everything was done that needed to get done. I was packed the evening before our morning departure. Work that staff couldn’t do until I do my part had been completed. The house was in order for a pleasant return. I only forgot my makeup base, a half-slip (I usually forget something crucial). So, we are doing better. I am learning. (I didn’t start on the messy garage.)

May the end of my days be filled with a similar equanimity, these little practice leavings will have helped me to ready myself for the final one.

In helping me to leave well, 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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-085)

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:
 
 
 
American women often pride themselves on their ability to multitask. However, recent studies of how the brain functions are beginning to indicate that multitasking may not be all that great—our brains themselves, not to mention our productivity, may be better off if we try to accomplish one thing at a time and get one task done before we start another.

I had a week recently that was the mother-of-all multitasking weeks. Although I tried to concentrate on one job at a time and complete it until I began the next job, I found myself hip-hopping from task to task.

However, by the end of my monster week (having cut a few things out of my schedule that I simply couldn’t fit in), I was beginning to feel a little smug. I really had moved through a mountain of to-do’s, checking them off the list one by one. Drafts had been written for the new weekly e-mail sales campaign. The donor letter was off to the designer. Autumn arrangements now filled the outside pots beside the walk to the front door. I’d caught up on most of my e-mails. I’d spent good time in prayer before the Listening Groups, and they had both gone well. The house had been cleaned. I’d brought the geraniums in from outside just before the first frost to overwinter in front of a south-facing window.

It had been a productive week—I’d even set the table for Thanksgiving. That much would be ready when I returned from a six-day trip to California right before Thanksgiving week.

And, I was fitting in a Sunday dinner with a friend, using up the produce in the refrigerator in a beef and vegetable crock-pot dinner. What a gal!

Sorry to report that not one thing I prepared to serve at that meal was fully cooked. The beans in the black-bean broth were just this side of crunchy. The carrots and the potatoes were decidedly on the firm side, and the meat—well, the meat (a grass-fed beefalo roast purchased from Michaela Farms, run by the Franciscan sisters in the convent of St. Mary’s at Oldenburg, Indiana) ... was more than a little chewy.

The conversation at our beautiful Thanksgiving table set two weeks before the holiday, however, that was very good. My guest commented on how tasty the gravy was (the only food served from that menu that was not undercooked!).

As I was cleaning up dishes in the kitchen, standing over the soapy water at the sink, I heard that sure, firm, clear inner word. So, you thought you were a pretty great gal, huh?

Oh drat—that old proclivity of mine, pride in accomplishment—had been insidiously worming its way into my attitude. Yep! I had been thinking I’d been a pretty great gal with all this successful multitasking—forgetting completely that I had prayed every morning, pausing to pray at noontide and evening, asking God for His help to get through the mountain of work that waited for me before I flew off to California. An undone dinner was the attention-grabber to warn me of a little inappropriate ego jigging around on the inside of this “great gal.”

I am so thankful I have a Heavenly Father who loves me enough to warn me that I’m patting myself on the back a little too much. Without His help, without the help of friends, without a husband who pitches in willingly and often, without staff—I might not accomplish much of anything.

Despite what people say, multitasking is not all that great.

Even in the midst of learning—or, perhaps especially in the midst of learning—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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-084)

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:
 
 
 
The hardest thing for me sometimes is getting started. I make lists of my prayer requests—things I need to do—in my prayer journal. These items come under the general category of “I need your help, Lord, with…”

On Saturday mornings I often get on cooking jags, but after one morning when I had cooked up the pumpkins and made puree, I realized I was going to need a little help turning all that orange mush into bread.

However, through the years I’ve grown wise—I know that sometimes God helps me by providing human hands. So, when a friend, a retired home-economics teacher, told me to ask her for help anytime I needed things to get done, I made note. Sometimes a big project is just a matter of getting started and sometimes getting started is a matter of someone else jumping in and lending a hand.

“Do you think you could give me a hand making bread one morning next week?” My domestic arts teaching friend was more than willing, she was eager: “Do you want me to bring my cranberry recipe as well?” she asked. I did.

My friend left after several hours of work on the appointed baking day—five cranberry breads were either in the oven or on the way there. A batch of pumpkin-bread dough was sitting in the aluminum bowl. By the end of that afternoon, working steadily on my own after my co-worker had left to grandparent-sit, another six loaves of pumpkin-nut bread were sitting on the counter. The kitchen project had yielded 11 golden, well-baked, delicious loaves of sweet breads. I kept two out for breakfast the next day and tucked the rest into plastic bags and popped them into the freezer.

I am ready (bread-wise, at least) for the holidays ahead and all because someone just got me started.

Thank you God for help. Once again, I spy You at work.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 microfinance 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. The 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.
 
 
(GHS-083)

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:
 
 
 
Sleeping well is not a common occurrence for me. For most of my adult life, I’ve been lucky to average five to six hours of sleep per night—and even if I managed that, often it was a sleep where I woke every hour or so to check the passage of time (12:30, 1:45, 2:37, 3:10 ... you get the idea).

Often, I just simply got up and delighted in the fact that I could put in 2-3 hours in the cause of productivity in the middle of the night. By 10:00 in the morning, I’d often done nearly a day’s work. This was great for my prayer life and my devotions, but not so great for my physical energy levels. By 2:30 in the afternoon, I dragged—maybe I allowed myself a short nap if I could get home. In the evenings, even reading was beyond me—I’d was just gutsing it out to stay awake until 9 or 9:30.

As I aged, however, I began to get it that this wasn’t a healthy way to live. I would have to solve the sleep problem (I have never used the word insomnia; I prefer to explain to myself and to others that “my mind just shoots out of the cannon when my eyes open—actually often before my eyes open.”)

I began to be mindful about being wakeful.

This last month, I’ve been averaging about 7-9 hours of sleep! As one of our granddaughters used to exclaim when she was about two years old, “Wha’ happen!”

I love this quote: “Of the spectator of the mysterium tremendum—the gaze of God—Jacques Derrida has this to say, ‘I don’t see Him looking at me, even though he looks at me while facing me, and not like an analyst from behind my back. … But most often I have to be led to hear or believe, I hear what He tells me through the voice of another, a messenger an angel, a prophet a messiah or postman, a bearer of tidings, an evangelist, an intermediary who speaks between God and myself.’”

I’m sure God observed my years of wakeful nights, heard my prayers, often met me as a beloved child and daughter, but having designed my body, He certainly was aware that wakefulness was turning from an asset into a dangerous detriment. I began to receive divine nudges from the God who is ever gazing at me—through the voices of others, messages in the media, a word from some intermediary—God making sure I “got” the point; my health was in jeopardy if I didn’t develop the habit of sleeping well.

John Payne, the president of Medical Ambassadors International who is also a friend and an M.D., made the casual comment over breakfast in his home one morning that chronic lack of sleep would certainly take off years in the sunset years of life. I heard him.

Another friend mentioned that her doctor had said if she took a Tylenol PM for the rest of her days, it wouldn’t do her any harm (I avoid pharmaceuticals like the plague they are). I begin to take an over-the-counter sleeping pill, just to see if it helped. It helped!

We had a friend living in the basement for eight months—no more banging around in the kitchen, cleaning the car in the garage, running downstairs to start a washing machine full of laundry, or vacuuming the house in the middle of the night (David, my husband, is a sound sleeper. I don’t wake him even when I pack suitcases in our bedroom with the lights on!). Not so with our basement friend—because of pain in his back, he too had wakeful nights. I didn’t want to disturb him.

Then another houseguest, a college professor, moved into the upstairs guest room. Between these two men, my wakeful nighttime hours were now confined to my writing study. Might as well work on the sleep thing.

So, I began to do the work of building a habit of sleeping well. A friend I loved mentioned to me that she uses earplugs—no more wakeful incidents due to her husband’s snoring. Obviously earplugs were a must—I have a bag of them in the night table beside my side of the bed, in my traveling case, in my purse—and I use them. “What are you saying?” I question David as he comes to bed, filling me in on the last incidentals of that day. “I have my earplugs in.” I no longer hear snoring or cars on the road or rain on the roof or the train whistle across town; some of these sounds I miss—but I’m sleeping.

Warm and comforting covers—the velour sheets, which I love to sleep between in winter—are on all the beds. A closed bedroom door. I don’t allow myself to glance at the clock if I wake in the middle of the night. I don’t even open my eyes if I find myself awake. Not much prayer either, that too often becomes an ecstatic experience. This is work—learning to reprogram my mind to sleep, to sleep deeply.

On a vacation in Europe this fall, I slept like a baby—10 hours of rest after sightseeing walking for 3-5 miles each day. I was disconnected from the Internet, far away from responsibilities, and David took over the finances and the perplexing complexities of currency exchanges. Obviously, at home, I went to bed overstimulated by the ideas and energies of my everyday world. Change in the daytime patterns of my life was also overdue.

But good sleep, dreaming sleep, REM hours, are beginning to come. I’m going strong with just a little break here and there for whole days. (Perhaps I’ll even extend my life into a productive old age!)

I love the prayer at the end of the Office of Evening Prayers:

Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping;
that awake we may watch with Christ,
and asleep we may rest in peace.

May you spend your days watching with Christ, and may you spend your nights resting in peace.

Peaceful rest—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 microfinance 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. The 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:
 
 
 
Since August, David has been notifying me I have an outstanding check that hasn’t been cashed by the recipient—a check for $150. Travel outside the country kept me from paying attention to this, so the husbandly notice continued through September and October.

Finally, I e-mailed my friend and reminded her of the check I had written, said that if she found it to tear it up, that I would write another check and send it her way. Unfortunately, something got lost in the e-mail translation between my instruction, the writing of a replacement check, this one for $200, and my putting it in the mail.

“David is right,” my friend e-mailed me back. “It got piled in a basket of files and mail that I meant to take to the office. Sorry.” She promptly cashed the first check, leaving me $57 in my bank account once the second check cleared. Oh well, it’s a good cause, I reminded myself. I probably should have given $350 right up front.

I had a salad to prepare for a celebratory potluck meal, a dinner for company, clothes at the cleaners, Thanksgiving meal coming, and I needed some traveling funds as I was leaving town for five days! To say I was a little short because of this lost-in-translation incident was an understatement.

What is at hand? I asked myself. First rule of thumb, right? On the counter in the kitchen was a bowl of green tomatoes, some scrawny green peppers, a few onions—all the remains of the vegetable garden I had cleared out last week in case I got around to finding that recipe for chow-chow (not to mention finding the time).

I bought one head of iceberg lettuce, chopped the last of the garden’s red-stem Swiss chard, fried the sliced green tomatoes and onions and a few plum tomatoes (kind of in-between-green-and-red) in melted butter and chicken broth, then diced radishes and any other greens I could find in the refrigerator to make a chopped “end-of-the-garden” salad. To top it off, I threw in the seasoned pumpkin seeds I’d salvaged from a pumpkin I baked in the oven and pureed for winter soups and holiday sweetbreads.

How often I find God’s provision in the things at hand; the ordinary common gifts that lie hidden in the dying vines and the weeds that have taken over the bean patch. I’ve often said to myself when short on funds, You don’t need money. You need good eyes and good ideas.

Americans throw away a good half of all the food they buy. This is outrageous! My $57 in the bank would feed a majority of families in the world (at two dollars a day) for 28 ½ days. How far can I go on less than 60 bucks in my bank account?

There is food in the freezer to make a company meal—use it. I have $14 in my wallet for my journey to San Francisco. What is at hand? Well, God is always at hand (He is always at hand). So there will be enough.

My makeshift chopped end-of-the-garden salad was quite good. I made a homemade balsamic vinaigrette to dress it. I think we’ll make this an early fall family tradition.
I’m already making out recipe cards headed:

.

FROM THE KITCHEN OF KAREN MAINS

End-of-the-Garden Salad

Ingredients:
Take whatever is at hand salvaged from the vegetable garden that you have harvested before the first frost (be bold—a good vinaigrette will blend the tastes).You are creating a new food tradition. Experiment for a few years!

One essential ingredient is wonder. Marvel at the bounty of the earth and then add gratitude that God is always at hand. These little gifts—good eyes and creativity—are evidence that He is always near.

Using what is at hand—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 microfinance 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. The 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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