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June 6, 2008

For The Sake Of The Call

Have you every gotten a call out of the blue that just changed the mood of your whole spirit?

The other day I got a call from someone I didn't know inviting me to work the Tres Dias weekend coming up in July. It was an unexpected call and it took me by surprise. It lifted my spirit up so much to be invited to do this because I know how much these weekends change peoples lives. It's great fun to be a part of something like that. I'm so excited to get to work the coming weekend because I am getting to work a job that involves one of my favorite things...Prayer. If I could do any job it would be just what I got asked to do. I'm not giving many details on that because I know some of you have not been through Tres Dias yet and I don't want to take away any of the surprises of what goes on there. If you ever think that Tres Dias is a lot of secrets....let me just give you a heads up and say.....there are no secrets...none at all....just an incredible weekend filled with life changing surprises and a intimate encounter with Christ our Savior.

This post is actually not about Tres Dias....however, there probably will be one about that someday. If any of you ever have any questions about it....give me the opportunity to tell you about it. My Tres Dias weekend showed me my Savior in a way I had never ever seen him before...and it completely changed my whole life.

This post is really about "Answering the Call". Getting that call really lifted my spirit and got me to thinking about how sometimes calls change our lives. Sometimes we get calls that take us by surprise. Some are good news and some inevitably are bad news. All are an opportunity for us to be Jesus to someone.

Don't you just love it when you get a phone call that brings good news? Doesn't it just lift your spirit and make you want to dance inside? Don't you automatically want to share your good news with everyone....right away? I do. I'm wondering....do you or I before anything else stop and say "Thank You" to God? All blessings come from above and from our God alone. When those good news calls come....do we say to the bringer of the good news...."This is a blessing from God and I am so thankful" ? We should. We need to give glory to God at every opportunity. Especially if they are not a Christian. We may be the only Jesus they ever see.

Don't you just hate it when a call brings bad or sad news. I just hate it when that happens. I just want to whine and complain or cry about the injustice of it all. I only want to think about me and how it effects me. I have been thinking that I should try to remember in those times that God is still on the throne and he is still in control. Nothing happens on this earth without his permission so who am I to judge what he has allowed. And even more than that...what kind of an example am I to the one who brings the bad news? Do I come across as self-centered or shallow? Or do I make a statement that shows that even in that moment ....I still trust my Savior no matter what?

Sometimes it may not be an actual call to tell us something. Sometime it may be a friend or stranger...challenging us to "answer the call" to do something we don't want or feel prepared to do. Sometimes it is a call to help others...or to step out in faith and make a difference in the world around you. Sometimes those calls challenge us to get out of our comfort zones and take a stand for right. Sometimes it is even "The Call" from God...to become a minister or a leader in the church.

There are all types of calls. Some are actual phone calls and some are "The Call" from God or others. Whatever the type of call....how we respond is very important. Sometimes the response we give may be the only vision of God that some people ever see. That has really been on my heart this week. I want to answer the call....whether it be good or bad or a call from my Heavenly Father...in a way that will glorify him to everyone around me.

Sometimes I think it comes down to this. How we respond to a call may make a lasting impact on how some people around us view God. May we always answer in a way that they will see Jesus in us.

I was thinking of the old Steven Curtis Chapman song "The Sake of the Call".

Some of the words go like this....

We will abandon it all
for the sake of the call

No other reason at all
than the sake of the call

Wholly devoted to live and to die
For the sake of the call

I pray that we may we be wholly devoted to bring glory to him as we answer the call.

May 21, 2008

Where My Soul And Spirit Meet

Fishing Poles in the Sand

The beach......I love the beach. If you know me well....or even slightly at all...you will have heard this statement come out of my mouth.....more than once. There is nowhere that I would rather be than at the beach. It is where my soul and spirit meet and I feel closer to God than anywhere else.

Last week, Sandy and I were blessed to get to go to Panama City Beach for several days. We had a wonderful time. We rented a two bedroom oceanfront condo that was at a resort called Gulf Crest. It was beautiful. It was very large and clean and had everything that we needed. The master bedroom was on the front so every night we got to sleep listening to the roar of the ocean through our balcony screen door. Talk about something that will rock you off to sleep....that will do it. The condo was located on the 9th floor and had a 39 ft balcony across the front of it. We had a beautiful view of the pool, the beach, and the ocean. It also gave you a perfect view of the sunset over the water....wow.....what a perfect place to stay.

We love Panama City Beach or PCB as we like to call it. The very first trip Sandy and I ever took together was to Panama City. We used to have friends whose parents had a house there. We went down with them for Memorial Day weekend....1992. We had been dating for 4 1/2 months and we were in heavy "like"....haha. 3 1/2 months later ....we were engaged....A good beach trip will do that to you. At least now days we don't have to sleep in separate rooms like we did back then.....WE REALLY LIKE THAT TOO!!!!! :-)

But I digress. It had been 4 years since we had been to Panama City and it has really changed a lot. There are two main roads that run along the beach. One is Thomas Drive and the other is Front Beach Rd. Thomas Drive used to be the nice end of the beach (nice condos and restaurants) and Front Beach road was a lot of of little rinky dink hotels (the miracle strip amusement park...was here but is now gone) and a few nice resorts. The two roads gave you a good mixture of large and small and you could find something for every age group and income level. One night we drove all the way down the beach and we were amazed to see that most of the small hotels are gone. There are huge condos and restaurants everywhere now. There is not much difference between the two roads now ....it is all a beautiful place on the beach.

We had a really wonderful time being together. We had three pretty days and a couple of cloudy/rainy days. That actually worked out well. We got some sun the first few days (or we both got burnt I should say...my shoulders got fried and still hurt a week later) and the last couple of days it was cloudy and we got to be out on the beach part of the day and in the condo resting part of the day. That was nice. I just love being out in the sun and walking on the beach or sitting by the pool (they had a great pool area) and then going in and taking a nap. That is the best sleep ever!!!

The beach was beautiful. Panama City's beach is so white it sparkles. The travel channel has several times voted it one of the top 10 beaches in the world. The signs going to the beach say...."Welcome to the world's most beautiful beaches" and they really are. This time of year it is not the least bit crowded. I felt like I had my own private beach most of the week. I spent a lot of time walking and praying and picking up shells. I just love to walk and pray and talk to God. It is so easy to talk to God when you are at your most favorite place in the world. If I'm at the beach I have to be outside most of the time. I feel the full force of God and the Holy Spirit when I'm out "there" with them. I need that sometimes more than I realize.

There are several places we always go when we are in Panama City. We always go to Pineapple Willy's and sit on the deck and have ribs. They have a deck that extends way out on the beach. It is probably the most perfect place to watch the sunset on all the beach. They are known for their ribs (their motto is "mo better ribs") and their Pineapple Willy drink....(which when I had it back when I was in high school ....was deadly!) We go here every time....but we go for the ribs!

Another place we always go is Angelo's Steak Pit. They have the best steaks that you will ever get anywhere. Black Angus beef cooked over cedar wood. So tender it falls apart. Yum yum yum!!!

This time we also went to the new Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville restaurant. It is the anchor for a new outdoor shopping center that just opened on the beach called "Pier Park" . This new shopping center is really cute. All of the different shops are painted in all the pretty Florida colors....blue, pink, red, green....and it has a great outdoor area to sit and enjoy the evening. It also has a new movie theater called "The Grand" which is even nicer inside than "The Rave". We had to make a stop at "The Marble Slab Creamery" for ice cream. But anyway...we went to Jimmy Buffett's place to eat dinner. I have to admit I love Jimmy Buffett music (most of it)....it just puts me in a happy mellow place. The restaurant is really nice and is right across the street from the beach. We ate dinner on the outdoor deck and listened to the music...it was a fun night to be together. The food was good too.

Sounds like all we did was play and eat doesn't it? I was just thinking of how my mom says ....eat, eat ,eat ..... when we go to the beach with her. Seems like every time we turned a round we were eating. We did also manage to play goofy golf (I won but I won't mention that) and we went to the show to see "Prince Caspian" (it's really good) and of course, we had to make a trip to Wally World for groceries (no trip is complete unless you get to go to the local Wal-Mart).

We had a wonderful time going to the beach. It was a quiet time of being together and resting. We needed that and we enjoyed it very much.

Below are some of my favorite pictures from the week. At the bottom of the blog page...there is a slide show of most of the pictures I took. It was to big to fit in the post.

Enjoy!

Tammy

p.s. For my "Hired" friends. When we got there our balcony screen door was torn. We wanted to sleep with the door open at night so we fixed the door ourselves. Check out our "hired" door below. The maintenance man did come fix the door for us the next day... and I'm sure he was not impressed.

Our Gulf Crest Condo