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:
 
 
 
Having been part of the planting of an inner city church during 1968-1978, I am all too aware that well-meaning people can do a lot of damage. This has been comprehensively addressed by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert in their excellent book (fast becoming the “bible” in the development world), When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty Without Hurting the Poor ... And Yourself.

The goal for the well-meaning Westerner is to work to bring any project to a point of sustainability, where the project is not dependent upon outside expertise, money or presence. The world is littered with good ideas that died when the Westerner with expertise, benign intent, and money necessarily withdrew their support.

So, I went to Nairobi—my fourth trip—with this question in the back of my mind: How do we move Global Bag Project Kenya (GBPK) to a place of self-sustainability?

You can imagine my surprise when Mary Ogalo, the Kenyan GBP Project Manager, put on my schedule a meeting with her new board of directors, the president of which was scheduled to conduct a day-long workshop on how boards function.

You can imagine my delight when I realized that an incredible synergy was developing between the Kijiji Guest House, its curio shop, and the GBP sewing room, all on the campus of Africa International University. Guests arrive, drop into the curio shop, buy something made by the seamstresses, and are invited to stop at the sewing room, where a larger display of products are available, and guests can buy or order something else. Mary reported to her board, “We have not sold anything under $600 for the last few months.” (It isn’t a lot of money, but then, this is a microfinance project we’re talking about.)

So we began to brainstorm how we could increase this synergy (and the sales). The guest houses are round (like a little village—hence the Swahili name Kijiji), but their décor has been somewhat neglected due to lack of finances. A comfortable Guest House with good food provided in the Kijiji Café, an upgraded curio shop, with inducements (blanket bags on the bed made by GBP seamstresses, cards on nightstands mentioning the sewing project just across the garden plot, Africa gift bags to take home to children, and so on) could increase the GBPK sales right at that site!

I woke one morning with the thought, What if we bring in a team of people who fix up a room or two—shop in the secondhand markets, stop at the village markets, buy fabrics for the GBP seamstresses to turn into items—couldn’t we eventually upgrade the Kijiji Guest Houses so they would attract more guests (and more sales)? What if we put a sign outside the redecorated guest room door that read:

The décor of this room has been provided
by the Global Bag Project
for the comfort of all who rest here.

All of a sudden, synergies were swirling within synergies! And as if this creative thinking wasn’t enough, Mary Ogalo was notified that Global Bag Project Kenya had been awarded its NGO (non-government organization) status—a process that only took six months instead of the usual frustrating years!

I discovered while in Kenya that the Global Bag Project was actually in the initial phases of developing a sustainable model!

Sometimes God works on the behalf of our ideas in places far away from us despite our inadequacies and our hesitations. He has bright, experienced, competent servants who love Him and want to bring His goodness to those who suffer all over the world. With a little bit of encouragement, they can take an idea farther than we ever dreamed. And in time, they won’t need us at all. That’s sustainability.

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-067)

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 recently flew home from a ten-day trip overseas with one week to put the final details together for an Advent Retreat of Silence for thirty-some women. So much needed to be done, and even though our staff was in a highly busy space themselves, they assisted me in putting the final touches on the Advent Retreat with willingness, without complaint, and with a spirit that brought great kindness and grace to my jet-lagging physiology.

Someone on the staff designed name cards (someone else found leftover nametags). Another individual pulled a list of alphabetized names together, showing who had paid and who was rooming with whom. A check was totaled and funds transferred so I could pay the retreat center. Handouts were copied and collated. Flyers were designed to list coming events. Every time I turned around, another task was done. I went to the Advent Retreat with everything organized, no last-minute panic, and with an hour or two to compose myself before the participants arrived. And yes, we all experienced a powerful time together waiting on God for the healing power of silence.

One of my tasks at Mainstay Ministries is to write or gather the ideas for our monthly fund appeal. Since I have been raising funds for nonprofit organizations since the age of 18, this frequently becomes a tiresome process for me. Some days I would give anything for someone to step into our organization, tap me on the shoulder and take this whole load off my back. If I were not so certain about God’s help to do His work in the world, I would give it up. But, so frequently, there is the right idea, and the right quote, and the right photograph just when I need it most. Thus, I am encouraged by the reality that this is a collaborative process, one in which I am not working all alone.

Other tasks, particularly the teaching tasks, are different for me. When I am putting together a teaching ministry, God frequently uses anything and everything to teach me. While developing a teaching program that used the metaphor of dance to show how to “step in time to God’s sacred rhythms,” it seemed as though all my spiritual reading, the conversations I had with friends, and the films, books, and magazine articles from popular culture gave me examples of this concept.

Even better, during this period of time I was the plenary speaker at a women’s conference where one of the workshops was being taught by a professor from a Christian college who was head of the dance minor. I attended, took copies of all her scriptural notes, and in a half-hour she had us all improvising worship dance. It was delightful!

I needed help to do God’s work in this world. Help arrived. 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-065)

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:
 
 
 
Because I planted tomatoes (from a nursery greenhouse, not from seed) a month after May 15th, which is the date gardeners mark here in the Chicago area as past the danger of frost, I have plenty of green tomatoes, and I am not sure there will be enough time for them all to ripen.

David and I leave for a ten-day trip overseas in two weeks. September is upon us and even with the slight chance that warm days will continue to October, I am projecting that I may have plenty of green tomatoes still on the vines.

Since I hate waste, I looked up some recipes for green tomatoes. Fried green tomatoes is one, of course, and has been popularized by the book and the film of the same name. My Joy of Gardening Cookbook, however, has some other suggestions as to how to use the not-quite-ripe bounty of tomato vines.

First of all, they can be harvested and stored. “If you don’t want to cook the tomatoes green, ripen them in a warm, dark place,” writes the author. “I put green tomatoes on a shelf in the root cellar and cover with a layer of newspaper. I check just about every day to ‘harvest’ the ripe ones and remove any that are starting to rot.” She also informs me that green tomatoes will not ripen well on a windowsill. The skin turns red but the insides stay green. The only recipes she gives for green tomatoes, apart from these instructions to ripen them, is the one for fried green tomatoes and one for “Andrea’s Green Tomato Chocolate Cake.” Since I am a sad and pathetic baker for the most part, I probably won’t try that last suggestion.

Also, we don’t have a cold cellar. I’ll see, however, if Cirillo will pick whatever green tomatoes are on the vines, store them on the shelves in the dark place in the basement where I keep extra supplies. I have no doubt he will clear away the debris in the vegetable garden before he returns to Oaxaca, Mexico sometime in mid-October.

Maybe when I come home from Europe (and then a side trip to Kenya to consult on our Africa bag project), there will be some bounty from my experimental foray into vegetable gardening that will remind me of the wonder that happens in the growing season right outside my front door.

Actually, as I think about it, nothing is really totally wasted, since everything green goes into compost piles. Sometimes I actually think, We don’t have enough weeds. I don’t have enough greens for the compost mix. Then, I am glad when we fill a wheelbarrow with the weeds I used to hate. I have more places to dump weeds than I have weeds to dump in them—but the month of August with its riot of growth, both planned for and unplanned for, helps.

When a mind is occupied with such necessities—What will we do if we have an abundance of green tomatoes?, or How will we make compost if there are not enough weeds?—there is not much room for mental anxieties. An evening in the garden when the setting sun slants, or an early cool morning of hoeing and transplanting, mostly, being at harmony with the natural world puts us back in a place we humans vacated too long ago and don’t even have the memory of missing. We just know that in some way we are dislocated.

I recommend thoughts about green tomatoes. I recommend soil on the hands. I recommend garden meditation. I am not the only woman in the world who says this is good for the soul.

And, in all of this, 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-050)

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 will be in Africa this October. One of the ways we cut costs on the Africa bags made by the bag-makers who belong to the Global Bag Project, is we “mule” the bags back.

We are a charitable organization. The sales are donations; we give a receipt for funds above the raw costs. Our travel is for humanitarian purposes, so we can take advantage of certain airlines’ generosity and bring back more than the allotted suitcases without extra fees. (Do you have a trip planned to Kenya? Can you bring back an extra duffel with kanga-cloth reusable shopping bags?)

In contrast to our “muling,” one box with 50 bags can cost us over $300 to ship!

Because of all this, I was eager for bags to be ready so I could carry them home for the parties we mount for pre-Christmas sales. However, due to the work our volunteer staff has been doing on the Internet optimization plan, (and our ineffective “National Watermelon Day”), we have not had much time to launch parties. Nor did we have the requisite funds to order new bags (which also means that our seamstresses did not have work). We need $500 to order 50 bags. This is just to buy fabric.

I prayed, Lord, do you think you could provide $1,000 so we could wire money to Kenya and begin to start the bag-making process up again? Carla Boelkens, our Stateside Director had not been paid. Mary Ogalo, our GBP Kenya Project Coordinator, had not been paid, and I had haunting visions of sewing machines standing idle with families going hungry.

“Do you know what,” said Carla. “We have an account for designated gifts that we don’t need right now. It has about $1,400 in it. Can we write a check from that fund and pay it back?”

We decided to borrow $1,000 from that fund (to be paid back by the end of the fiscal year) and begin the process so I could mule kanga-cloth bags back from Africa when I return in mid-October.

Then we sold an unexpected $300 of bags at the backyard party and an unexpected $500 of bags in West Lafayette, IN (and, oh, I forgot—we sold some $500 worth of bags at our 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration). It was as though God was saying to me, It’s all right. You are not slipping into the “rob Peter to pay Paul” mode. You’re just a little cash poor. Trust me. I will provide all your needs.

One of the ways we teach people to spy God intervening in their every day is in the category: “Help to do God’s work in the world.”

As long as I am faithful in my prayers (and sometimes when I am not), God is ready to help me do His work. A small kindness, an simple conversation, an empty room readied for a houseguest. These all often work more goodness than any of us suspect or know. Money sitting idle.

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-045)

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:
 
 
 

Oh, life’s little frustrations!

A friend offered to underwrite a trip to Italy by covering the expenses for four of us—he and his wife and my husband and me. That in itself is a wondrous gift. But, the fact that it is our 50th year of marriage and we are still healthy enough to travel makes this a double blessing. The reason he volunteered such generous underwriting is because he received some inheritance money earlier than expected, and the four of us have been talking about taking this trip together for a decade.

Our friends have traveled with us when we took a tour of 36 people to Spain to visit the sites of the Spanish mystics. Our friends traveled with us to France when we took 22 people to discover “God Through the Eyes of the Artist and the Artist in the Eyes of God.” And the four of us ended up in Vienna on the 2nd Sunday of Advent for a week, roaming the Christmas markets and attending free classical concerts in the churches of this historically musical event.

“We want to go to Italy,” said this well-traveled friend, “but we want to go with you. I’ll pay for it if you will plan it.” I suspect the generous underwriting came because there was some suspicion I would never get around to it. The bad world economy had frightened me into not attempting any more risky travel adventures.

I’ve written a book in which I used Michelangelo’s Pietàs as a metaphor for mercy, and my initial plan was to visit the earliest Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica at Rome, the Florentine Pietà in the Duomo Museum in Florence, and the last Pietà, the Rondanini in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. My plan was to use the book Comforting One Another as a major theme for our journey through Italy.

However, none of the travel agents I’d worked with in years past were any longer available. They had either quit the travel industry, moved to other agencies, or were unable to work outside the country where we had enjoyed the benefits of their specialized competencies. I left messages and received no callbacks.

Finally, getting a little panicky (I didn’t want to make a random selection with a company that was not established or without a recommendation from a traveler who had used them—horror stories abound about tourists losing their funds when a company goes under), I turned to one of the members of our small group. His enterprise treks young people all over the world for the purpose of developing leadership through adventurous travel.

“Oh, Kim!” he answered. “We’ve used Kim for decades. She knows what she’s doing. She’s local. We’ve been most satisfied with her. Also, she knows Italy. Her daughter lived there.” He even knew Kim’s phone number by heart.

Not only do we sometimes not ask God for what we need, but we forget to ask the people we know who often love and respect us and want to help in any way they can. God often helps us through our friends. (And, how often we neglect to recognize their help as coming from Him.)

Our Italy trip seems to be in capable hands (with someone who returns my phone calls and e-mails right away!).

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. 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-040)

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:
 
 
 
Caitlyn, our eldest grandchild, is 18 and starts college at Indiana Wesleyan University. She’s received a soccer and an academic scholarship. And, because she’s so far from home, Phoenix, I have been hoping we would be able to get down from Chicago to see her frequently enough to be a support in that tenuous freshman year of adjustment.

When the daughter of a high-school friend (whom I haven’t seen in ages) called to ask me to speak for a women’s event in her church in Lafayette, Indiana, I was immediately concerned to see whether I could fit this date onto my August calendar.

“Will you drive down or fly?” I was asked. Oh, drive—by the time you get yourself to the airport for these short trips, wait at the gate, fly out, pick up baggage, and drive to your destination, you might as well have taken your own car. The travel time is generally about even, if not shorter.

It was only when I e-mailed my contact that I could accept this invitation, and MapQuested the miles and directions, that I thought, Oh, Caitlyn! Maybe I can pop on to Indianapolis and catch her somewhere in a gap between her soccer practices.

I quickly cell-phone-caught Kit (as her brothers and friends now call her—it used to be Kay-Kay). “When are you arriving at school?” Next week. “Tell me about your roommate (a sister soccer-team member). How are you set for clothes?”

I suddenly realized that Kit (let’s face it: I will probably always call her Katy) would be on campus a full three weeks before classes. With this speaking invitation to Lafayette, about 45 minutes from IWU (learning the lingo here), my expenses would be covered. So, I could visit with my granddaughter (and said roommate). What an unexpected gift! Not only that, but I might even have some money to blow from book sales and a small honorarium for a warm winter wardrobe to help Caitlyn endure our Midwestern winters.

One of the categories we teach people to examine in order to find God is what we call “unusual linkage or timing”—those events in life when we are prone to exclaim, “What an amazing circumstance!” But, there are no such things as “circumstances” when we live within the embrace of a loving God who oversees and participates in the everyday progression of our lives.

I get to see Caitlyn in a couple of weeks because someone in Lafayette, Indiana, thought I would be good to invite to speak to their women’s event.

Yeah 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. 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-039)

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 only flights David could arrange for me on his United Frequent Miles program to California went through San Antonio to Los Angeles on the trip out from Chicago. Coming home the arrangements were even worse; from John Wayne airport in Santa Ana, to a layover in Denver, to a layover in Sioux Falls and finally—12 hours later—arrival in Chicago. These were two journeys I was not eager to take, but since it was the only way I could attend the wedding of my nephew in California, I accepted the miles from my husband with admittedly some minimal grumbling about the endurance demands of the transit.

At the gate to San Antonio at O’Hare, however, the ticket agent looked at me and asked a question that in all my air travel no one has ever asked me before: “I can get you on a direct flight to California. Would you prefer me to book you on that flight?”

To save money, I had packed lightly, and looking down at my carryon case, which I had not surrendered at the check-in counter, realized I could easily haul it to whatever terminal the direct flight was departing from. “When does that flight leave?” I asked. It was now 7:25 a.m. My San Antonio flight was booked to leave in an hour at 8:31.
 
“It’s boarding now and the gate closes at 7:45.” That was just enough time for me to hurry from gate C6 down through the United connecting tunnel to gate B12. “I can just make that.” And, I took off racing through the bustling morning crowd.

Sitting in my seat on the direct flight to LAX, I calculated I had shaved four hours off my trip and another hour of waiting at the gate—five hours total. Now if I could only figure how to get from the airport to the Marriott Residence Inn in Westlake Village, California. My brother-in-law, Steve Bell, had arranged under the original plan for me to drive to the hotel with his brother and wife, who were scheduled to arrive at 3:45 p.m., about a half-hour after my original scheduled arrival time. If all went well, it seemed like a fortunate plan.

But, I didn’t want to wait for them if I could find other transport. An afternoon nap before the rehearsal dinner seemed like an even better scheme.

“Steve?” I inquired, using my new smartphone. “I’ve arrived four hours early in L.A., and I can get a shuttle up to Westlake Village. But, is there anyone else arriving about now?” Thank God for cell phones.

“No, no, no. Don’t take the shuttle,” he instructed. “Daryl and Brenda (brother-in-law and sister) have just called. They are right now at the car rental. I’ll get back to them and have them circle around for you. Are you at Terminal 7?”

I indeed was at Terminal 7. I told Steve to have them look for a white-haired lady in a brightly colored jacket (indeed, it seemed as though I was the only white-haired lady in all of the LAX airport!) waiting just before the “Taxi Pickup Only” sign. Within 45 minutes we were on our way, bopping along the 101 Freeway in a dark-blue, rented Mustang convertible. I was in my room by noon, had time to unpack and take a long nap, then dress for dinner.

What was an original travel plan that worked became a truly perfect travel plan orchestrated by a loving heavenly Father who cares when His aging children dread the impact of a long and exhausting journey. It surprised me and exceeded any of my expectations.

I recognize His caring hand. I give Him credit and thanks. My husband is praying that I will catch a direct flight home.

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. 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-035)

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:
 
 
 
Apart from seeing old friends we hadn’t seen for nearly 40 years, or being reminded of the value of our long-term ministry (a truth many of us are apt to forget with the passing of time); apart from the fact that our whole family gathered themselves together for the first time in seven years, there were surprising add-on benefits that came from our 50th Wedding Anniversary Celebration—cards with lovely messages and words of thanks, and sometimes monetary gifts—$50 for 50 years of marriage seemed to be a trend.

One couple had five Gideon Bibles placed in hotel rooms in our names—what a nice gesture! Others included restaurant or event coupons (tickets to Goodman Theatre in Chicago, for instance).

The week after our 50th, my husband announced that we were taking Cirilo Leon out for pizza to celebrate his birthday. Cirilo is from Oaxaca, Mexico and migrates seasonally to garden for clients along Hawthorne Lane and Prince Crossing and Indian Knoll Road, the streets that are close to our home. For the last two summers he has lived in our basement guest room. So we took Cirilo out to Gino’s East for deep-dish Chicago pizza and “paid” for the meal with 50th Anniversary Coupons.

David had also reserved on my calendar the fact that we were going to spend one whole day in the city of Chicago with a young couple from South Africa who are stepping into a crucial leadership position in that country. Because we love “our” city, and because it seems to become more and more beautiful with the passing years, we enjoy showing it off to friends, old and new, who have only visited it while passing through O’Hare Airport or on quick, cursory trips. A rule-of-thumb we have learned through the years is: You should always try to see a city through the eyes of someone who loves it. My husband gladly provides (no matter how busy he is) the “David Mains’ Overview Tour of Chicago With Guided Commentary.”

We ended the excursion (on a beautiful sunny June day) at Maggiano’s, an established Italian eatery on the near north side. Again, we treated our friends to a meal using up our 50th Anniversary Coupons.

Eating together, listening to each other’s stories, I had the passing thought, How wonderful to have gifts that allow us to give gifts. Some presents just keep on giving. Our coupons would not have been nearly as meaningful to us if we had used them only for our own pleasure. Their meaning was doubled in the fellowship of sharing.

This certainly is one of the principles of Christian grace: God pours mercy and fullness and forgiveness and kindness into the lives of His children. And, if they “get it” instead of hoarding the bounty, they pass it along. From His gracious expansive unlimited favor, we are made replete with enough generosity to share again and again.

How pleased our friends who gave us gift cards would be if they knew they had doubled our joy—gifts for ourselves and gifts for others.

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. 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-033)

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:
 
 
 
This is our 50th wedding anniversary. It is amazing to us, given the completely different temperaments we have, that we have not only endured this many years of marriage, but that we have thrived.

Some friends are going to all the work of putting together a combination celebration and church reunion. Over 200 people are gathering this Sunday, June 26th, to worship God, catch up with one another, and say, “Good job in sticking together, you Mainses.”

All our children and grandchildren are coming, and we will go away to the summer home of our son-in-law’s brother, not too far away, in Michigan. All of this, of course, is gift enough for David and me. We’ve never been people to make much of birthdays or anniversaries—sometimes, I’m afraid, observing them in quasi-special ways only to have something sufficient to tell to friends who inquired, “So, how did you celebrate?”

But, as we were in the midst of gathering addresses and making sure our kids had this date down on all their calendars, I realized that God had given us an amazing 50th-anniversary present.

Last year, at the Stratford Festival, which we have attended for over 35 years each summer, some friends who have traveled with us overseas in the past mentioned that they would like to take the trip to Italy we had talked about for seven years. One of the small ministries I have undertaken has been to set up “pilgrimages” overseas. Journeying anywhere can be used as an incredible metaphor for the spiritual life. Some inheritance money had come their way they said, and we could use some toward this trip as a site visit for other pilgrimages with more people in the future.

These friends didn’t know that this summer, a year later, we would be celebrating our 50th anniversary, but God did. I am working on a journey to Italy for this fall—our anniversary year.

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. 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-020)

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:
 
 
 
Some rules of thumb that are working for me during this time of limited funds are:

Rule Number One: Don’t spend any money if you can help it.

Rule Number Two: Remember to pray about what you need.

Rule Number Three: Before purchasing, check to see if there is anything at hand you can use.

Let me illustrate:

I like to change the bedroom from a winter bedroom, with its heavy dark-paisley bedspread, assorted mound of throw pillows and contrasting cloth on the bedside table, to a lighter summer look. The winter scheme is terrific for our cold Chicago winters (we even crawl into the comfort of velour sheets, sparing the use of an electric blanket). But summers need something lighter, something cooler. I started to gather summer items three years ago. I found a white percale, flounced dust ruffle. My daughter-in-law passed along a quilted coverlet that served perfectly as a bedspread. I even broke my Limited Funds First Rule and ordered some pillow covers out of the Pottery Barn catalog.

The room looked much better though it wasn’t quite done, but I headed into this summer determined not to put any more money into seasonal change décor.

This summer a Wheaton College student, who is in between graduation and her next step, will be moving into our guest room. I spent a morning emptying closets, clearing out under the bathroom sink and making sure she would have enough drawer space.

In the process, I opened several boxes since I couldn’t remember what I had stored inside them. I found two beautiful pieces of lace cutwork, mementos I had brought back from a trip to France, particularly from the Montmartre district of Paris.

One was a white tablecloth that fit the bedside table perfectly (protected from dust by the Pier 1 Imports round glass covering its top). The other was a cutwork pillow cover, which I am running today to find a pillow to fill (hopefully at the nearby resale shop). These two fabric pieces finish the room perfectly, match the dust ruffle on the bed and have already been paid for! I consider them good gifts.

And I thank God, again in my prayer journal, for giving me an excuse to rummage and to find the lovely forgotten things waiting patiently all these years to be called into service.
 
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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. 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-009)

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:

Checkbooks and I are not always on the very best of terms!

My husband, who balances his to the penny, as an act of enormous consideration and constant mercy, balances mine monthly. Not only are my checkbook notations often undecipherable, I have numlexia (number dyslexia), so the figures get twisted. AND—I do not remember phone numbers, hotel-room numbers, street addresses or cash-register totals from the moment I hear them to the next.

My husband, a Sudoku aficionado, calls my monthly bank statement “the ultimate Suduko puzzle”!

He’s kind about it, saying things like, “Well, if you didn’t have this numbers problem, you’d be a perfect woman. Then what would I have to help you with?” The man is a saint.

I do a little bit better with the Hungry Souls statements, the small division I manage at our ministry. However, in the middle of transferring this account to a closer bank, I took a trip to Budapest, and when I came back, I could find all the transfer papers—but no checkbook. Our accountant as well as our office manager were waiting to reconcile the bank statement, but no one had the checkbook.

“Do you know where the Hungry Souls checkbook is?” asked our office manager.

So I started searching—for a whole week. I looked in files, I looked in drawers, I looked in the satchels I lug to the office. No checkbook. Finally, I couldn’t bear the thought of inconveniencing everyone and went to sleep praying, Dear Lord, You are the Finder of all lost things; can you please help me locate that checkbook?

That inner nudge, which has become so familiar, prodded me, Have you searched your purses? I hadn’t, because I always clean out my purses, empty them actually before I place them on the closet shelf.

But this morning, I searched my purses, and in the black one with the black lining, in a black pocket, there was the black Hungry Souls checkbook.

We find God in our worlds when He answers our prayers—our silly prayers about miniature concerns as well as our profound prayers about huge overwhelming matters. I wrote this little incident down today in my prayer journal: “Thank You so much—Found HS Checkbook in black purse.”

And then I made a little notation at each point where I had written: “Help to find: 1. Hungry Souls bank record.”

I have recorded my prayers for over 38 years. No wonder I spy God daily.
 
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Award-winning author Karen Mains 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. 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.

Karen has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk and is the author of The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase & the Wonder of Being Found.

Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
(GHS-005)

In jostling crowds we can steady the arm of that elderly person for whom there is no concern. We can comfort that strange child in the store whose “mommy got lost.” We can listen to the middle-aged woman who insists on talking during the entire train trip. We can reassure the stranger frightened about the wrong bus schedule.

This created world is a vast hostel in which we can practice hospitality and courtesy and openness. It is indeed the world which God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Life Response

1. Make a study of the Gospels to determine how often Christ asked questions in His conversations.

2. Test a week of your private conversations, as follows:

a) How much of what you say is “me-me-me”?

b) How much is “you-you-you”?

c) Do you discuss the same topics over and over? Or, are you able to participate in a variety of subjects?

d) How much initiation in conversation is because of your efforts? Or, do you wait until someone attempts to put you at ease?

e) What is the basic topic of your talks? People? Purchases and things you own or want to own? Ideas and events? The realm of the spiritual?

3. Ask yourself how many levels of listening occur in your life. Are you listening at all, or only thinking of what you want to say next?

4. Set aside several times this week to listen to God. Place your notebook nearby and record in it what He says to you.
 

A Prayer

Lord, thank you for having given Yourself in intimate,
inexplicable hospitality.
You have been the Host to all creation.

Without a dwelling, You have contained the
whole world and habited Yourself in the winds,
the corners, and the depths, inviting us to be
at home with You. Beneath the shadow of Your
wing You bid us hide, and in the depths of Your
Being You shelter and refuge us.

Without meat You have nourished us.
Without beverage You have refreshed us.
By Your very Word came sustenance.
On bread and water without price have we been fed.
You have been manna in the wilderness of our lives.

Without a table You have banqueted us,
inviting us, yea, to be married unto You.
Over our heads flies the banner of Your love.
We are entertained with the mysteries of faith,
the songs of the Spirit, holy laughter.
You have garmented us in festal righteousness.

As we wandered in wastelands,
You sought us before we called.
You extended eager welcome
though we had scarcely knocked.
You embraced us when we were filthy
and oppressed and undeserving.

You are the Samaritan who passes not by,
Who finds lodging for us in the warm inns by the way.
You bake fish over coals, waiting for us,
though we have forgotten to wait for ‘You.
With broken hands You break the loaf of blessing.
Those same wounds caress our leprous spirits.
You do not fear to openly accept the intimate worship
of our harlot hearts.

You are the Host of all mankind.
Lifted up, suffering, without breath,
You yet extend greeting to all the masses,
     “Come unto me...
          come...
               come.”

You give us the mystery of Your presence
in this supper of the ages, this remembrance of
Your ultimate hospitality

O Lord,
Make my hospitality as unto Yours.
Be forever my archetype of endeavor,
My firstfruit of harvested goodness:
Love for the battered, misused child,
Grace to bind running ulcers of flesh and soul,
Eagerness for the wealthy without servility,
And for the poor without superiority.

Through eternity You have been and will be
utterly hospitable.

Help me,
poor, faltering, unfeeling me,
to be like You,
with breath-beat and soul-heart
poured out
emptied
opened.
Help me,
to be given to hospitality.
 
 
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For decades, Karen Mains 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 churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, 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. 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.

In addition, pastors will find special resources to help them create effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
 
 
 
(OHOH-180)

We must learn to think of the church as being without walls, and use our homes as tools of ministry. Once we have opened the doors, to our private selves as well as to our private dwellings, can the inheritance of this unique clan be slow in coming?

As I originally penned these words in the 1970s, I reckoned that period had been a most difficult year in my life. Early that fall I was put to bed with a severe form of “over-ministry,” a disease I have since discovered common to many a pastor and his wife. Neatly six months later, as I was beginning to feel strong again, my dear father became ill with an attack of encephalitis.

We were informed several times during a week of crises to be prepared for his death. Though he lived, six months later he is still in a nursing home making infinitely slow progress with no guarantee of a return to normalcy.

Every few weeks seemed to harbor a disaster, great or small. Our three-year-old was hit by a fast-moving bicycle and was rushed to a hospital for twelve stitches uncomfortably near his eye. Our eldest lost a fingernail which got in the way of a pitched ball as he was attempting to bunt. We sustained two cases of scarlet fever, various throat and ear infections culminating in what seemed like weekly trips to the pediatrician.

There were frequent visits to the community hospital 20 miles away to see my father, then to the rehabilitation center that was unable to rehabilitate, then to the nursing home with its wheelchairs and wandering senility and the 60-year-old mongoloid woman crying, “No! No! No!” for hours in the evenings.

The mechanical and physical supports in my life threatened to stop functioning. The washer stopped washing, the dryer stopped drying, the freezer couldn’t decide whether to freeze, mushing my hand-picked cherries and wild blackberries and the summer’s beans. The muffler went on the car. The kitchen faucet jammed and something under the sink pretended to be a fountain. The birthday Big Wheel lost a vital part which held the entire contraption together. Paint peeled on the eaves, and water leaked in the basement.

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karen Mains has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, 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.

For decades, Karen Mains 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 churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

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

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. 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.

(OHOH-091)
 

Both sets of grandparents lived geographically close to us from many years. My husband, David, and I were grateful for the input and interest they gave to our children. Each family has different activities they enjoy, unique perspectives from which their grandchildren can draw deeply. In addition to this personal wealth, we discovered the bounty of the extended family of our church community. The benefits derived from the attention of other adults toward our children were invaluable.

One time the older children were invited to go fossil hunting in a stone quarry with another family from the church. They returned, knees skinned and baskets filled with archaic treasures pressed in rock, enthusiastic about this new interest That same week a single friend took the smaller boys on a fishing trip, then was talked into setting up his tarpaulin in the back yard for a one-night sleeping tent. Since my husband’s interest in camping runs more to the hotel/motel variety, this was an experience for the children we welcomed.

We continue working diligently to remind ourselves that the church is in reality an extended family and that we all bear responsibility for the nurturing of the children of this body. Singles also benefit from these relationships.

Seeking oneness in Christ in a world that places undue emphasis on coupling can be a hazardous task. But, it is often eased by the eager, loving response of someone else’s children. How often I have heard people express thankfulness for the physical contact. To be able to hug and wrestle and touch, wholesomely and without societal disapproval, is a healing encounter provided by children who will readily exchange “scrunches and smooches.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For decades, Karen Mains 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 churches at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.

Karen has long had an interest in Christian hospitality and is the author of the best-selling book, Open Heart, Open Home.

An award-winning author of several other books, 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. 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.

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

(OHOH-060)
 

What if you could take a dose of medicine that would cure non-clinical depression, crankiness, anxiety, personality complaint disorders, feelings of deprivation, as well as love neuroses? Would you take it? Furthermore, if this medicine was free, had no negative side-effects, caused no drowsiness, did not interact dangerously with other medications, was safe for children, and could be used despite pre-existing diseases of the heart and thyroid, high blood pressure and diabetes, would you use it?

Then, what if you discovered that the cure affected by one dose had measurable impact, and that by taking daily doses, like vitamins, you could keep the cure working?

Is there such a wonder drug? There certainly is. It is called thanksgiving. Being grateful. Giving thanks. When I was a younger woman, with four small children, a husband who was an inner-city pastor, and insufficient funds to manage all this, I decided that my gratitude aptitude was deficient. So I spent three months journaling only prayers of thanks—no requests for those three months, no “gimme-gimme-gimmies”—just a growing list of things God had done for me that I added to each day. The phrase “all good gifts come from God and from Him are all things given” has become a breath prayer, begun long ago, that I repeat over and over. I find myself whispering it in my soul almost unconsciously.

What are the results of developing this “attitude of gratitude”?

The systematic study of positive emotions within psychology only began in the year 2000 due to the fact that this field was mainly focused on the negative impacts of distress. Since then, scientific research has gathered evidence from controlled studies indicating that grateful people experience higher levels of well-being. They are happier, less depressed, less stressed (were you aware that an estimated 90% of health problems doctors see are stress-related?). Grateful people are more satisfied with their lives and social connections. They feel as though they have greater control of their environments, they are more intentional about personal growth, have more purpose in their lives, can reach out for support from other people when they need to do so, and when hit by negative circumstances they can reinterpret and learn from them (this is called resilience, a substantial indicator of emotional and psychological health).

The list of proven impacts from giving thanks goes on and on, and is so lengthy we will end here (except to mention studies indicate that grateful people sleep better!).

As a personal observation, I will testify that the impact of practicing gratefulness was so tremendous on my personality, lifting me from the default position of the icky catalog in the first paragraph, that I have practiced it since every time I turn to work in my prayer journal, which except for rare occasions, is daily. I generally find at least a dozen things I’m grateful for each day. But more than a dutiful practice of developing a helpful habit, I find that now, after decades, there is an inner joy of giving thanks that seems to be going on inside me all the time that I notice only when I turn my attention inward. Perhaps this is what writer David Steindl-Rast, in his book Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer, meant when he said, “Prayer is grateful living.”

So if you are really having trouble “gettin’ thru the day,” try thanksgiving. That lovely Scripture from the Psalms is short and sweet, easy to remember; “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.” Psalm 106:1b, NIV.

In order for gratefulness to have lasting effects, however, you will have to make gratitude an attitude—it can’t just be a one time dose that you take. Even pharmaceuticals prescribed by doctors sometimes need a week or two to kick in before they have positive impact. Since it takes at least 30 days to break a bad habit as well as to make a good habit, begin by listing all the things you can find for which you are grateful. Try to add to your list every day. I promise, the practice of gratitude will help you defeat the demons that beset you.

Steindl-Rast talks about the person who does not believe in God. If you are in that category, please hear that gratefulness works for people like you just as it works for those who attempt to be devout believers. “Even people whose worldview does not include a divine Giver to whom their thanks can be directed often experience deep gratitude in those moments. They experience it no less strongly than others, even though their gratefulness gets mailed without an address, so to say. In any case, we know from experience that whenever we are truly awake and alive, we are also truly grateful.”

Gratefulness is a medicine that can help you make it through the days. And unlike sleeping pills, soporifics, it actually wakens the inner slumberer, the dormant sleeper, the inattentive snoozer missing the beauty in each moment and the meaning that is in all of living.

It is a medicine that, unlike some, goes down smoothly.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:
Karen Mains is part of an international team of men and women heading the Global Bag Project, a microfinance enterprise for women who live in developing areas of the world. The idea is to sell reusable shopping bags, made by Third World bag-makers, to provide sustainable income for them. Visit www.GlobalBagProject.com if you are interested in learning more.

She and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya, Africa next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

Furthermore, Karen is creating a teleconference curriculum on “Personal Memoir Writing” to post on her Web site, www.KarenBurtonMains.com, in an attempt to create a distance learning mentor writing project to help other “Wannabe (Better) Writers” get published.

One of the worst things that happens to us when we are in pain is that we enter into a kind of isolation room that sometimes seems as though it has no door. Terrible things may happen to all kinds of people, but the pain we feel is our own, no matter how common it may be for others.

In our own pain, we are alone. And if we will let it, that pain will become the sole sucking-force of our being, turning our full attention, our active thoughts, the very meaning of who we are, toward its focus.

Our job is to not let that happen. Sometimes, things are so bad in ordinary life, we just barely make it through the day, but when the day is filled with terrible hurt, no matter what the cause, we now have the additional task added of not letting it consume us.

What makes this worse is that where as once we had a culture that was built on community and interaction, we now because of busyness, the technologies, and the distances we have to go to connect with friends are facing a culture that is being built to enhance isolation.

In an article by Janet Kornblum, USA Today reported that Americans have one-third fewer close friends and confidants than just two decades ago. This is something of a seismic shift. “You usually don’t see that kind of big social change in a couple of decades,” reports Lynn Smith-Lovin, co-author of the study reported in American Sociological Review and professor of sociology at Duke University in Durham, N.C.

In 1985, the average American had three people in whom to confide matters that were important to them. By 2004, that number had dropped to two confidants, and the findings determined that consequently, 25% of Americans have no one in whom to confide.

Smith-Lovin explains, “Close relationships are a safety net. Whether it’s picking up a child or finding someone to help you out of the city in a hurricane, these are people we depend on.”   

The USA Today article makes the point that research has linked social isolation and loneliness to mental and physical illness. If that is the case, can we not also conclude that our mental and physical (and spiritual) health improve when we are socially connected and not living in isolating environments?

So, here’s the thought for this blog: Do not let pain isolate you completely. Do not let it swallow you into itself. Find one friend. Search out an old companion. Join a group. Volunteer where people are present. Put yourself into a happy (and healthy) social environment. Become a member of an accountability group or a recovery program. Just don’t face this terrible season of life by yourself. You can open the door in the isolation room. Don’t stay there so long that you begin to think it’s normal, or you begin to love it.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:
Karen Mains, published author with a background in radio and television, has supervised more than 250 Listening Groups that provide a place for people to hear one another and be heard in turn. She leads women’s Retreats of Silence, is a spiritual coach to hundreds, and is the author of the best-selling Open Heart, Open Home, a book about using the home to alleviate the isolation in our culture.

She and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya, Africa next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

This blog is about—guess what?—getting through the day.

I ask people, “How ya’ doing?” And so often I hear the same response. “Jes’ gettin’ thru the day,” people answer. “Jes’ gettin’ thru the day.”

Believe me, I know where these folks are coming from. In some circumstances, getting through the day is almost more than any of us can do.

However, at my age (67), I’ve learned a few lessons and have advanced, for the most part, from “jes’ gettin’ thru the day” to attempting to live each day as though it is a minor work of art (some days are major works of art). And yep, some days are just plain blah!—but not many, not many at all.

After years of being in ministry, and after conversation with friends who are on local church staffs, we concluded that some 80% of the people in congregations are facing problems too big for them to handle. For these people, getting through the day is a major undertaking.

Perhaps, some of the things I’ve learned and am still learning, some of the things I’m facing and will face, and some of the life lessons I’m activating, will help that 80% who just don’t know how they’ll make it from day’s beginning to night’s end, not to mention the nights in between.

The first thing I know—I positively know—and have taught to my children, all of whom are adults now and married with children of their own, is that we all have a choice. We can make this a good day or a bad day. We can make it a good life or a bad life.

“Look,” I’ve said umpteen times during the child-raising years. “You have a choice. You can choose to make this a bad day or you can choose to make it a good day.”

As hard as this may seem for those facing horrendous situations, this is a basic interior attitude over which we do have control—we don’t have control over most of the bad things, minor and major, that happen to us. We do have control over how we will respond to it.

If you’re part of the 80% just getting through the day, how are you going to make it a good day, despite the circumstances? Do you want to choose to make it a good day? Or are you going to let all the woes, the worries, the injustices rob and cheat you of a good day and a good life?

Love to hear how some of you defeat the darkness on this most personal of levels—choosing to make it a good day.

Karen Mains
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Karen Mains is a national-award-winning author of more than 26 books. She is involved right now in helping to create a microfinance women’s pilot project in Kenya—the Global Bag Project, which seeks to sell reusable shopping bags made to provide sustainable income to help bag-makers around the world lift themselves from poverty. Her book about the refugee crisis in the world, The Fragile Curtain, won the 1982 Christopher Medal, which is awarded to works that uphold the highest values of the human spirit.

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is creating a teleconference curriculum on “Personal Memoir Writing” to post on her Web site, www.KarenBurtonMains.com in an attempt to create a distance learning mentor writing project to help other “Wannabe (Better) Writers” get published. Additionally, she and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

Also, Karen is preparing for the upcoming (Advent) Silent Retreat, which is still open for registration (see the Hungry Souls Web site for more information; click "Retreats of Silence").
 

Yesterday morning, I and my grandson, Elias John Mains, skipped church. It was an exquisite September day, the ground kissed with early light; David, my husband, is overseas in Kenya. A busy week had prevented me from making time for my seasonal gathering—clipping tall swamp grass, beaded dock and fuzzy cattails that I combine with artificial sunflowers from Hobby Lobby and realistic-looking but plastic pumpkins for the arrangement on my front porch.

It’s all too easy to cram grandkids into our adult schedules and something told me that the holiest way I could pass this morning with this grandchild was to go out into the fields and gather—Elias is delighted with the natural world. “Let’s go clip cattails,” I said.

“Oh, Nina,” he said. “I love cattails!”

So we did. We found stands of tall grass, clipped enough to fill the natural wood basket I had hauled home one year from West Virginia. We found the cattail pond, stopped at McDonald’s for breakfast, then parked our car to take a walk down the Prairie Path—the old Chicago, Aurora & Elgin train line that has now been turned into a pedestrian path for strollers and joggers (and for bikers and for the few horseback riders who still exist in our area). We brought the hand-clippers and began snipping enough late summer weeds, some blooming and some past bloom, sections of curling vines and interesting branchets—field daisies, rose hips, all wild things happily living their cycle of life out in the proper season of life.

These all were for a bouquet—Elias pronounced the T. After several false pronunciations, I corrected him and explained that bouquet was a French word and in France, the consonant at the end of the world was not pronounced. “We have a lot of foreign words in our language because people have brought their words with them when they came to America,” I explained. “We think they are English words, and sometimes we speak them in English ways, but we have become so used to them we forget that they are not really English words.”

“Oh, like placate,” Elias responded. He had been studying Julius Caesar in school. “Yes, that is a Latin word, and in Latin, it would be pronounced pla-ca-te,” I explained. Who could have imagined that this walking in the exquisite morning world would have included a discussion on etymology with a nine-year old? This is why I love spending time with children; they are always so much smarter then we think they are.

We watched a flock of Canada geese fly overhead and form a V-wedge. We noticed grasshoppers hopping in the sunshine. We clipped enough for two bouquets (pronounced the French way now)—one large bouquet and one smaller. Elias is a chatterbox with many intriguing thoughts bouncing around in his mind—a startling good mind. So, I love to get him alone, relaxed, and without distractions. I never quite know where our conversations are going to go. Tracing our way back the Prairie Path, he slipped his hand into mine and we carefully watched for bikers who were now more frequent as the day aged. “Biker behind us,” Elias warned. “I saw a flash of metal.”

When we returned home we went to the back patio and arranged the larger plants in the earthenware jug and the smaller in the Chinese teapot—Elias took joy in filling the containers, and I slipped in some late summer roses from my garden.

“They look good, don’t they Nina?” Yes, indeed. Our hodgepodge of late summer cuttings looked great. I hoped I would have time to gather a larger, more spectacular group sometime in the week. “You know, Elias. Everything God has made is beautiful in its own way.” And that is true for those who have eyes to see, who take the time to attend, and who care to step in the rhythm of life, each season at its turning, each month in its appropriate calendar place, each week, each day—morning, noon and evening.

Each creature—animal or plant or human—is beautiful in its own created way.

I am a person who finds the Presence of God in the natural world. I am enthralled, filled with awe, full of praise in my garden, at the seaside, before a grand mountain and walking along the Prairie Path in Illinois with a nine-year-old grandson’s hand in mine.

It is beautiful.

Come to this dance that is life, join in the steps, join hands with others who walk beside you and sing the praises of the One who teaches us the steps. (And if you can, take a child’s hand as you do.)

    I danced in the morning when the world was begun,
    And I danced in the moon and the stars and the sun,
    And I came down from heaven and I danced on the earth
    —at Bethlehem I had my birth.
   
    Dance, then, wherever you may be.
    I am the Lord of the Dance said he,
    And I lead you all, wherever you may be
    And I lead you all in the dance, said he.

Karen Mains
KM1-46

Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is creating a teleconference curriculum on “Personal Memoir Writing” to post on her Web site, www.KarenBurtonMains.com in an attempt to create a distance learning mentor writing project to help other “Wannabe (Better) Writers” get published. Additionally, she and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

Ken Medema, the Christian musician, is blind. When I heard him sing this song decades ago, I was moved by the meaning of the text. I am still moved. I hope this dancing metaphor has stimulated strong images and associations for you. Today, please consider the question: Who is it who is extending the invitation to you to dance?

    She asked me to dance and I’d never tried dancing before.
    I had visions of everyone laughin’ us right off the floor.
    No, I protested, it just wouldn’t be any good.
    She gently insisted and finally I told her I would.

    Unforgettable, she was a fresh breath of Spring on a cold winter’s day.
    Unforgettable, she taught this singer to sing in a whole new way.

    Well, he asked me to dance and I’d never tried dancing before.
    I had visions of saints and angels laughin’ us right off the floor.
    No, I protested, it just wouldn’t be any good.
    He gently insisted, and finally I told him I would.
   
    Unforgettable, well, He was the coming of Spring on a cold winter’s day.
    Unforgettable, for He taught this singer to sing in a whole new way.

    The coming of Spring on a cold winter’s day…
    taught me to sing in a whole new way…

There is a moment in every Christian journey when the reality of Who is extending this invitation just hits us between the eyes. This One wants us to be in step with Him—not just pacing to theological formulations and ecclesiastical schedules. He holds us and there is rhythm in the motion, laughter in the pure joy of stepping together, love in His eyes.

I hope, if you have not, that you will reach that reality soon. Someone has extended a hand to you.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is currently involved in a mentor writing project involving teleconferencing. She has just finished a cycle with six “Wannabe (Better) Writers” and is brainstorming the effectiveness of her “Personal Memoir Writing” curriculum with that group. She and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya, Africa next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.

The film Signs, starring Mel Gibson, is a profound meditation on the loss of faith. Employing the plot device of an alien invasion (not my favorite narrative arc), the story looks at the Hess family, which has been shaken by the brutal accidental death of its mother and wife.

Graham Hess, the father, an Episcopalian priest, has forsaken his calling and no longer believes, but the alien visitation forces him to look at issues from God’s perspective. The one scene in the film I find breathtaking is where the Hess family spends a night of terror in their boarded up farmhouse. When the attic is breached by an advance alien contingent, the family of father, uncle and two children retreat to the basement. This trauma sets off a severe asthma attack in Morgan, the son. The father holds his son, the child’s lungs swelling as he struggles for breath and life. “Breathe with me,” the father says. In and out, in and out, they labor for breath together. “Don’t be afraid, Morgan. Breathe with me. You and I are the same. Together, breathe with me.”

If you haven’t already seen this already, you need to rent this video.

During a time when I was meditating on Christ’s words from John 15:4, “Remain in me, and I will remain in you,” I thought about the Apostle John with his head on Christ’s breast during the Last Supper. When your head is that close to the body of another person, you can hear the heartbeat, feel the pulse; you are aware of breath being inhaled and exhaled.

I realized that when I pray, I should be resting my head against the breast of this One. I should hear the heartbeat, feel the feathery aspiration on my face. Not only this, I remembered Christ’s words from John 14:20, “I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” When my head is on the breast of Christ (through meditation and prayer), my being tucked within His embrace, Christ’s head is also on the breast of God. The Son is enfolded within the embrace of the Father, and I within the embrace of the Son. Breathe, they say to me through the Holy Spirit. And in prayer we breathe together; in and out, in and out. You and I are the same. Don’t be afraid. Together. Breathe with me.

Sometimes life strikes blows. Terrors over which I have no control torment me. I fight for enough air. If I can just remember this sacred rhythm, one so subtle it is easy to forget, but if I can just remember to become one with Christ who is one with God, then it is as easy as breathing in and out, in and out. I have moved into the heart of the perichoresis koinonia, the theological term that infers that the Trinity is a fellowship of Three Holy Dancers; we have moved into the deepest part of the sacred Dance, where God is.

Karen Mains
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Other projects involving Karen Mains right now:

Karen Mains is currently involved in a mentor writing project involving teleconferencing. She has just finished a cycle with six “Wannabe (Better) Writers” and is brainstorming the effectiveness of her “Personal Memoir Writing” curriculum with that group. She and her husband, David, are hoping to lead a Christian trip to Kenya, Africa next March for the purpose of developing microenterprise projects.