Finally the day has come. I am ready to move on with this election thing. Tired of the bickering, name calling, the spins and not telling the whole truth. Who would want that job anyways? Check us out in 4 years and tell me what has happened. Will you be better off? Would you have experienced real change? There are times in life when we have defining moments. This is one of those for our country but for us ... its the same ol same ol. Poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. Our defining moments are when something happens in our lives, a new direction or the loss of a loved one. Everything changes........ everything. Life is not the same any more......

The last couple months I continue to ask the Lord to teach me and expand me. I don't want to stagnate in my faith and understanding. Yes there are seasons of spiritual highs and lows - growth and quietness and many times we come to Sunday mornings and don't feel God at all even when we think we are doing everything right. We continue to walk around with that yoke in our life that keeps us looking down, head pulled low and carrying the weight of our one thing that continues to hang on us. You know what that yoke is in your life. It keeps you tied to it like a mule plowing a field - just drudging along.
God has called us to be different. As followers of Jesus Christ - we are to be His light for the world to see. He has called us to be different and to personally take the Good News into the people in our lives. ALL PEOPLE - no matter where they are or what has been done to them.
Over the last couple of months I have really asked God to step my faith up either through testing me or through showing me. What is it that He wants me to do? I have quietly fasted and stepped up my prayer life. It has been an amazing experience in many ways. Not only does it feel good with accomplishing something that is pretty hard like a fast - it also puts my heart and mind in the right places. We all have something in our lives that we are praying about. Maybe God is quiet these days and it seems He is not answering your prayers. Maybe there is a reason He is not answering. Is there something in your life that is holding those prayers back? Sin of some kind, a relationship that is not right, maybe how you are treating others, maybe its you keeping your faith to yourself - maybe you are not really taking your faith seriously. Maybe just going to church on Sunday morning is your check mark to be seen by others or maybe your not looking to change at all and let God turn your life around. Maybe you're not really trusting God at all~
There are a lot of people really struggling today. Sunday while at my family reunion with all the food around - I just couldn't help but to think about the couple of families that are in need that are just breaking my heart. It really bothered me as we all ate our FULL share and then tossed so much out or took home leftovers for the dogs. How I wanted to take a plate or 2 for them. We all have so much but like so many others and what society teaches us - we keep are barns full and strive for more. We build bigger barns only to hold more stuff. I don't want to be that Christian who has 10 loaves of bread and gives out 1 loaf to someone in need. I am fine with doing without so that someone else may have some. I want to give 9 loaves .... to be that encouragement for someone who needs a reminder in life that God cares and loves them. I want to share what I have been blessed with through Jesus and His way - not ANY other way. I am OK with walking through those tough places with them - to be there to listen and to pray for them. Life is hard and so many of us have that yoke around our necks just dragging along in life - God has called us to put on the yoke of others to help carry the load. AND by doing so - we get to share the message of Jesus with them - we get to remind folks they are not alone - we get to share the peace that only God gives us in this life - we get to share in their burdons so that they too can come through their tough time and drop what is dragging them down and experiencing true freedom with Jesus. Eventually they too will walk along in life and fill a need of a family or a child or a sick neighbor and help carry their yoke in life.
The government cannot do this - this election won't do this - Jesus can do this. Today is not only a day that we get to vote - it is a day I get to drop off a meal to a hungry and hurting family. A family who needs some encouragement and a reminder that God is with them and my family and I are with them. There is a child who needs to experience that someone out there has not just given up on her and thrown her to the side to accept whatever life is given to her. There are people who care and willing to go to those hard places. It doesn't matter that the past has been hard - we are not to live in our rear view mirrors! We are look ahead and see that victory with Jesus is where we are going.
Yesterday I asked if there was anything special that I could get for her family. She paused, thought for a good 3 seconds and said - "A loaf of bread".
Jesus fed 5000 men and many more with adding women and children with a few loaves of bread and a few fish. Imagine what this country (and our communities) could do if Jesus, His church and His family of people reached out and shared their barns of bread with others and only keeping what they need. People would experience change.......... real change .... the Change that can only come from Jesus. Today is one of those days and I am excited to be serving the Lord this way. I got a feeling I will be picking up 2 loaves of bread this evening..... and that will be a great moment - think of all the awesome things you could experience - What blessing are you missing out on because you are not serving others.
Love you all,
Lonnie~

If you feel like your prayers never get off the ground ....... Isaiah 58 is that reminder and encouragment you are seeking through Gods word.

Isaiah 58
1-3 "Shout! Hold nothing back—a trumpet-blast shout!Tell my people what's wrong with their lives! They're busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me.To all appearances they're a nation of right-living people— law-abiding, God-honoring.They ask me, 'What's the right thing to do?' and love having me on their side.But they also complain, 'Why do we fast and you don't look our way? Why do we humble ourselves and you don't even notice?' 3-5"Well, here's why:
"The bottom line on your 'fast days' is profit. You drive your employees much too hard.You fast, but at the same time you bicker and fight. You fast, but you swing a mean fist.The kind of fasting you do won't get your prayers off the ground.Do you think this is the kind of fast day I'm after: a day to show off humility?To put on a pious long face and parade around solemnly in black?Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like?
6-9"This is the kind of fast day I'm after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts.What I'm interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families.Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once.Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage.Then when you pray, God will answer. You'll call out for help and I'll say, 'Here I am.'
9-12"If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people's sins,If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out,Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.I will always show you where to go. I'll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones.You'll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.