Category Archives: Prayer

Two Doors Down

Faithful, God's love, Live Like Jesus, Prayer

By Kristen Mudrack

Perhaps the hardest thing about moving is making new friends.

And I don’t mean friends you can hang out with and have a good time with.  I mean friends that you can share everything with – the exciting things, but also the hard things – in your marriage, your kids, your eating habits, your exercise (or lack thereof) habits, your fears, and your dreams, your quiet times and your prayers.  Those friends don’t come overnight, and they take time.

When I lived in Michigan, I had that group of friends.  I didn’t have it immediately – it took a couple of years.  But I had a group of women who I could share anything with, and they could too.

Then I moved.  Twice.

I still have those friends, but they aren’t a quick car ride away anymore.  I still can tell them anything.  I still talk to them regularly.  I still count them among the people who know me best. But it’s not the same.

When I moved to TN, God knew that I’d need a friend or two, and he provided.  The day I moved into my new apartment, leaving my fiance back in IN, the other new professor in the department and his family moved in too.  Two doors down from me in the same apartment complex.

In talking to each other that day and in the days to come, we discovered that we had all grown up in the same area, attended similar churches, and so much more.  Their four year old daughter came over to my apartment and “helped” me unpack the day I moved in.  Their two year old now knows me as ‘Tisten’ and runs to hug me every time he sees me.  We started having dinner together once a week.

When Cody would come to visit me, we’d go over and play with the kids and play games with the whole family.  The kids loved Cody because he could do magic tricks with cards.  Now this family is our closest friends here in TN.  We share much together, and they even made the trip out to our wedding.

God provided more than I ever could have imagined in this family – friends who we hope to be near for many years to come.  I love this family, and am privileged to get to live life alongside them.  Two doors down, in fact.

Behind The Falls

Live Like Jesus, Prayer

Last summer, I spent a few days at  Niagara Falls with my parents and my then-fiance.  We’re a camping family, so we hooked up our very old pop-top camper to my dad’s new-to-him car (which, by the way, had no air conditioning) and drove our way to the Falls.

I’d been to the Falls once before, on a family trip many years ago.  I don’t remember much about that trip – I’m pretty sure we stopped on the way to visit a college for me to look at.  And it was just a quick, get out of the car, look at the water, and then get back in the car kind of trip.  This time, I fully intended on seeing every aspect of the Falls that I could (from both Canada and the US) and enjoying the time with my family.

When you walk up to the Falls, you can feel the mist on your face.  You can see the mist rising from far away.  But not until you reach the edge do you really get to see the majesty and beauty of this water.  Four of the five great lakes flow into the Falls, but that’s not what makes it impressive.

To me, it’s the roar of the water, the sheer power that falling water has.  It’s loud, and wet, of course.  Water has been revered by many religious groups for centuries.  It’s necessary to keep you alive, and makes up much of your body mass.  But the water from the faucet or the shower pales in comparison the power that water has falling over the rocks at Niagara.

There’s a place on both sides of the Falls that you can go behind the falls, or straight under it.  If you thought it was loud before, think again.  Standing just feet from the curtain of rushing water, you can barely hear yourself think.  There’s a reason most people who go over the Falls don’t survive.  They are powerful.

But what makes them so powerful isn’t the distance that the water falls, or the volume of the water that flows over the side.  It’s what happens before the fall, and underneath the water, that matters. The majesty and beauty of the falls only comes because of what is underneath all of the water rushing down the river before hand.

If you walk back along the water coming to the Falls on the American side, you see rocks causing the water to flow faster and in a different direction.  You see uprooted trees and trees growing sideways to direct the flow of the water.  Years of erosion have made the silt, sand, and mud on the bottom of the lakes jagged in some places and smooth in others – but you can’t see that.  It’s hidden by the water.

The rocks and trees and sand and silt are what make the water flow the way it does, and what makes the Falls so powerful.  It’s all the stuff you can’t see that makes what you can see so beautiful and majestic.

We’re that way too, aren’t we?  God has to work on the stuff that people can’t see on the inside before we can be the glorious and beautiful image of Himself.  Before the waterfall can be powerful and majestic, what’s underneath the surface must be shaped and molded in just the right way.

How is God working on your rocks and trees and sand and silt to make you the waterfall that everyone wants to see and wants to talk about?  His image can only be made perfect in you when you let Him work on the inside, the hard stuff.  The rocks and the trees.

I pray that in this new year, you allow God to work on those things that the world can’t see, so that what the world does see is Him.

Guest Post: Whiplash

Do Something, dreams, Faithful, Guest Post, Patience, Prayer

I only had the privilege of living with Jen in college for a year, but that year was one of transformation and change and following God’s will for both of us.  After our senior year, Jen went on to Princeton, where she competed seminary and has since been working at a church in North Carolina.  I have always admired Jen’s way of looking at life, and have appreciated the conversations we’ve had since leaving college.  It is a privilege to invite Jen to share on the blog today.  

By Jen Christianson

Sometimes my life as a minister gives me whiplash.

Today, I spent the afternoon in a retreat to close our summer internship program, celebrating a summer of grace and growth, and grieving the end and the necessary goodbyes.

Immediately after, I drove to the nearest hospital to visit with a congregant in his eighties, who’d survived a tricky heart surgery. He has a long road of recovery ahead, but in so many ways it’s a fresh chapter: life snatched back from death.

The end of one chapter. The beginning of another.

There are too many days like this, sometimes. Too many funerals and baptisms in the same week.

At times, I find it easier (but never actually easy) to strike a balance, and then there are days I scarcely know what to do.

I had a lot of those days in Kenya.

I visited earlier this summer with a group from my church, seventeen other travelers on a ten-day trip to reconnect with friends and ministry partners in and around Nairobi.

For fourteen of us, it was our first time there. And so everything was jarring, everything new, everything a revelation.

And I had whiplash all over again.

Except it looked like this: laughing children next to open sewers in the middle of the slum. Students learning in broken down buildings without light, without air.

Joy next to suffering. Light in the darkest places. Abundant hospitality in villages that know only poverty.

How can it be? How does this happen?

I kept remembering the question from John 1, the incredulous tone: Can anything good come from Nazareth?

And the answer: come and see.

Come and see that even in the midst of great hardship, there is blessing. Come and see the people who laugh and sing even when their stomachs are empty. Come and listen to the friends that we met there, young men like Jeff.

Jeff lives in Mathare, Nairobi’s second-largest slum, giving shelter to half a million people in an area about half a square mile. He is an exception to many rules, not a statistic: he has not succumbed to drugs, alcohol, violence or gangs. He spends his time in a ministry that seeks out young people in the slums, to make sure they know the same path is open to them. He spends Friday nights in church.

But to walk the streets where Jeff grew up, to stand in the classroom he spent years in as a student, and to sit and hear him talk about a God who protects and provides for him is to be profoundly confused. At how this kind of faith can grow, well – here.

I felt that way. Until one night, in our group devotions, when a fellow traveler made this observation: “the people we’ve met,” she said, “have so little. But because of their faith, they have so much. We have so much, and yet, because of our faith…we really don’t have much at all.”

And then I realized: I want Jeff’s faith.

I want to cling tightly once more to the idea that God cares about me, and is at work, all the time, doing something good in my life. I want to sleep secure in the conviction that God protects and watches over me. I want to pray with confidence that I will be heard and answered – even if it’s in ways I didn’t ask for or don’t understand.

I want to walk with intention again, the life of a disciple. To be guided by faith. To follow wherever God leads.

And I’m learning that God often leads straight into a whole lot of whiplash, that messy pairing together of things that just don’t go, that don’t make sense.

A savior who comes to a peasant girl in a stable. A Lord who eats with criminals and lepers and prostitutes. Life out of death. Hope out of despair. Light out of darkness.

The life of a disciple, I think, means witnessing to this kind of illogical, confusing, astonishing, grace and power. It means standing in the middle of these contradictions and proclaiming “yes” to all of them. Yes, God is in these both; yes, something good can come out of Nazareth.

It means remembering that the God who made us all will make it all well, bring it all together, in the end.

Thanks be to God.

Guest Post: Meno

Broken, dreams, Faithful, Guest Post, Prayer, Testimony

When I lived in Michigan, God brought me some incredible friends whom I have cherished greatly.  Our group of women (and their respective husbands and children) became a group I loved to get together with for anything – games, Bible study, babysitting, or girl’s night.  No matter what each of us is going through, we are always there for each other.  Last year, one of these friends, Heidi, went through a difficult miscarriage.  There were no words we could say, only hugs and shared tears and shoulders to cry on.  Heidi has written these words for you today, no matter what you are going through.  No matter how hard, God is still faithful.  It is truly an honor to invite Heidi to write for All For Him Life today.  

By Heidi O’Neill

Sometimes life just doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes you are rolling along and out of nowhere you get horrible news.  You’re knocked flat on your back and gasping for air, head reeling as you try to come to terms with your new reality.  Maybe for you it was hearing of a sudden death of a family member, a bad diagnosis, your spouse leaving you, or losing your job.  For me it was an ultra sound and a doctor telling me words that my ears would not register – we had lost our daughter to miscarriage.

We had a rocky first trimester but had made it to the second trimester.  My nausea and fatigue had lifted, our doctor felt that we only needed routine care from that point on, and we felt like we were spared.  We felt assured that our fervent prayers and those of our friends and family had been answered.

But then the spotting returned and I set up to go in for a heartbeat check later that day.  I went by myself because we had been told that spotting could just be a part of this pregnancy.  Two nurses couldn’t find the heartbeat.  “Sometimes we just can’t find the heartbeat with the Doppler at this point in the pregnancy,” the nurse told me.  “You are next in line for the ultra sound, we’ll check this out .”  I held out hope while I called my husband and waited for my turn in the ultra sound room.  It had always turned out fine so far.  We prayed together and held our breath.  Nothing could have prepared my heart to hear my doctor explain that although I should I have been 15 weeks pregnant my baby had died around 12 weeks.  We would never get to meet that sweet child here on earth.  Of all the hard things I have been through, nothing had ever rocked my faith like this.

My heart was full of questions.  So many questions.  Why her?  Why my little one?  How could she have died nearly three weeks ago without me knowing anything was wrong?  Why were there no symptoms earlier?  How was I going to tell my 2 year old son who couldn’t wait to be a big brother?  How was I ever going to be ok again?  How was I ever going to trust God again? How can a God who loves let something hurt me like this?  If God really loved me, why did he let this happen?  If God is all powerful, why didn’t he answer these prayers? Why her?  Why us?  Why does this happen to any little ones at all?

Why does a good God allow such awful things to happen to those he loves?

Through the moments, days, and weeks that followed I knew that I should trust God.  I’m a rule-following, people-pleaser by nature and inclined to “do the right thing.”  I told my heart, “trust God, he loves you,” but my mind hurled back more questions, doubts, and plenty of anger.  I knew that in all of the anger and pain I couldn’t make her come back.  I couldn’t fix this, and I couldn’t make it stop hurting.

God turned my mind to one word, meno.  I had fallen in love with this word from a Bible Study of 1 John I did last fall (What Love Is by Kelly Minter).  Meno is greek for remain, abide.  We had studied and looked deeply at this word, specifically in the passage where John calls believers to “remain in the truth.”  It is hard to force yourself to believe something.  I’m strong willed, but even I only have so much will power.  The most precious thing about this word is that it is translated in all of these ways: abide, be held in, wait with expectancy, continue in.

Be held in the truth.

God doesn’t expect us to be faithful to him on our own.  He sent his Spirit to live in us.  The power of God living in us, is helping us to remain in his truth.  He is helping us.  He was and is helping me.  God also warns us that “in this world we will have trouble,” and “Do not be surprised when you face trials of many kinds.”  He knows there would be hard things that will weigh on us and be painful.  When we walk through those things our hearts can feel betrayed.  It is hard to see why a loving God would allow us to walk through such suffering.  Our hearts can be prone to wander and wonder if God even loves us at all.  That is exactly why John calls us to remain in the truth – the truth of the Gospel.

You see, the Gospel is that God created and loves humanity.  He cares for us, provides for us, and in return we have sinned against him over and over and over again.  The Bible tells us that the wages for sin is death and that there is nothing we can do to pay that price.  Yet God, being full of mercy, gave up his own son to pay for our sin.  He sent  Jesus to die a painful, criminal’s death, paying for the sins of the world even though he was sinless.  Jesus died to pay the price for our sin so that through his work we could be forgiven and reconciled to God.  That is the truth.  That is love.  The truth of the Gospel, is that God does love me and gave himself up to be with me.

So in the pain I hold to that truth.  I hold onto it for dear life reminding myself that God is with me, that his promises are true even when it doesn’t feel like it.  It hasn’t been easy and there have been plenty of bad days.   Walking through this suffering I have let this word meno remind me to hold onto the truth of God’s love as well as other truths of scripture.

“I will never leave you or forsake you.” (Heb. 13:5)

“I will strengthen you, help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” (Isaiah 41:10)

“You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle.” (Psalm 56:8)

“in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

“God is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

As I have clung to these truths and prayed for strength and peace I don’t want you to think that my questions just went away.  I continued to feel angry, hurt, and so, so sad.  This made me think a lot about Job and how he wrestled with God through questions too.

One Sunday our pastor shared a video about Job(Reading Scripture: Job http://bit.ly/2n5ta5a).  Job went through awful things too.  He suffered and questioned why.  I was surprised that the video pointed out thought that the question of why bad things happen to good people is never answered in his book.  When Job questions God and demands his explanations God does not give him an explanation like he wants.  Instead he shows him that Job is not able to fill the position of God of the Universe and that he cannot understand all of God’s ways.  God invites Job to trust him and his wisdom when hard things happen.

Like Job, I am humbled by God’s awesome power.  I could never dream of running the world.  It is impossible for me to see how all of the pieces of life fit together.  So when hard things come I lean hard into God.  I still ask my questions, and beg for peace, but now I also pray for greater trust.  I pray that God will increase my trust in him and in his wisdom and sovereignty.  I feel so sad and upset that Lilly died, but I do acknowledge there must be more going on that God knew about and I did not.  I pray that God will help me continue to lean hard into him and be assured of his love and good plans for my life.

The day after I delivered Lilly I got the word “meno” tattooed on my left wrist.  I am so forgetful of God’s love and promises that I wanted myself to have a constant, visual reminder to remain in his truth.  I wanted to remind myself that I am held there by the power of the Holy Spirit and I don’t need to do it on my own.  When I see it I pick a truth to focus on and pray that God would help me believe it in my heart more than I know it in my head.

He is faithful.  He is walking with me and is answering those prayers.

He wants to walk with you too.  I pray that you will open your heart to him and let him love you and hold you in his truth too.

Headlights

Live Like Jesus, Patience, Prayer, Waiting

By Kristen Entwistle

I was driving home late last night, down one of those two lane country roads in Indiana.  Turns out, there’s a lot of those roads, and I’m pretty unfamiliar with them right now.  You see, I just moved here, and I’m still learning my way around.  I don’t know which roads twist and turn or which ones are likely to have horses and buggies on them.  I don’t know which ones have stop signs every half mile, and which ones go on forever.

Most of these roads have a ditch on either side of them and people who drive like maniacs.  Oh, and people who blind you with their high beams.

As I was driving down that two lane road last night, it was a little scary – not being able to see more than a hundred feet in front of you and not knowing what’s up ahead.

It’s kind of like life, isn’t it?  God gives us these glimpses of what He is calling us to do, these rare moments of certainty where we can see a hundred feet in front of us.  But we can’t see what’s coming.  We can’t see that there’s a sharp turn or a stop sign up ahead.  That cancer is going to hit us seemingly out of nowhere or that a close friend is going to die unexpectedly.  But we can’t see the good things too – the new baby, the extra money that just showed up in the budget – all we can see is what God illuminates before us.

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Occasionally we get a glimpse of what’s coming when there’s a house light on, or a gas station.  But not very often.  Most of the time we’re still in the dark, with only our headlights.

Walking in faith isn’t easy, and it’s certainly not without its difficulties.  But we’ve got a God who can see all the twists and turns and stop signs because He built the road.  He knows what lies ahead for us and He guides us through it.

We may end up in the ditch sometimes, or make a wrong turn, but still He shows us the way, one step at a time.

Immeasurably More

Faithful, Prayer, Testimony, Truth, , ,

By Kristen Entwistle

I was cleaning out my desk the other day and found something pretty amazing: God’s provision.

I’m packing up my apartment to move a few hours away, and so, naturally, I was cleaning out my desk – you know, throwing away old papers that I really shouldn’t have kept in the first place, getting rid of the things that I just threw in the drawer over the last four years…and I came across some old cards.

I tend to keep things…probably longer than I should. But be that as it may, I’m glad that I kept these.  They’re cards from very dear friends that were written as I was graduating college and moving to Michigan.  I opened them up and started reading them…smiling at the memories and laughing at the inside jokes from long ago.

And as I opened each card, the same thing kept staring me in the face.  Each of these people who were so dear to me had written similar things, among the jokes and stories and laughs.  Each of them had said that they were praying I would find a good, Godly church in Michigan.  That God would bring me good friends at all of the right turns in my life.  That God would provide.

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And He has provided – all of those things.  More than I could ever have imagined.

He brought me to a church, where I have been able to serve and love and grow, where I have been blessed with a family of God that is so dear to me.  It’s been a place where I have seen the kids I watch grow up and change and learn.  Where a Sunday doesn’t go by that I don’t get a hug from at least one of my little ones, brightening even the darkest week.  Where I have been encouraged to lead and to write and to serve.  Where I have been loved.  Where I have walked life with some amazing people – the hard times and the good times.

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God has not only brought me good friends – He has brought me great ones.  Friends that I am going to miss terribly, but who will remain friends for the rest of my life.  Friends who challenge me, encourage me – friends who have changed me for the better.  Friends who let me love their kids – and who love me.  Friends who share life with me – and I with them.  Friends who pray with me and for me and let me pray for them.  Friends who have shown me the love of Christ.

When I read those cards four years ago for the first time, I trusted that God would provide through the prayers of my friends.  But I didn’t know until now, reading them again, just how much He has provided.  So if you’re wondering if God is good – let me remind you.  He is.  If you’re doubting that He can provide what it is you need – let me remind you.  He can, and He will.  If you’re in the middle of a trying season, and you’re hanging on for dear life – let me encourage you.  He’s got you.  He’s not gonna let go.  He will provide – and He will do immeasurably more than you could ever ask or imagine.

Fifteen Minutes

Faithful, Patience, Prayer, , , ,

By Kristen Entwistle

I was a distance swimmer in college.  The 1000 yard and 1650 yard (the mile) races were my favorite.

I think what I loved about it was that for ten or fifteen minutes, no one expected me to do anything but swim. 

Out of the water, every fifteen minutes was full of chaos and expectations and multi-tasking.  I was expected to have an answer for everything – what assignment was due tomorrow for any class, what lab the general chemistry students were doing this week, how my doctors were handling my latest illness, what songs we were singing at church this week, when choir was performing at church, when our next swim meet was, how much time I needed to drop to make the cut for any event…

But for those precious minutes in the water, all I had to do was swim.

Even now, when my life feels overwhelming, and the change is impending, and my to-do list is a mile and a half long, I wish for those fifteen minutes again. 

And I realize that I don’t only want those fifteen minutes – I need them.

I need that time to rest in God and in His promises.  I need that time to recharge, reset, and renew.

It’s not much, but it is enough for today.  Tomorrow, I’ll need it again.  Fifteen minutes.

rest

I believe. But help my unbelief.

Faithful, God's love, Prayer, Truth, , , , , ,

By Kristen Entwistle

It’s never quite the way you plan it, is it?  Life?

One day, you wake up, thinking it’s all going to be all right, and then – bam.  You get thrown a curve ball that you never expected.

A few weeks ago, my family faced one of those curve balls: the unexpected and largely unexplained disappearance and death of my uncle.

What do you say when something like that happens?  How do you make sense of the seemingly unexplainable?  How do you cope with the gaping hole that is left in his place – of a father, a husband, an uncle, a friend, a surgeon, a brother?  Where do you find peace in the midst of such turmoil?

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives.  Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  John 14:27

Hold on a second, God.  In the midst of all of this, I’m supposed to just not let my heart be troubled?  You’re telling me this is easy?  And just don’t be afraid.  Sure.  That’s just easy peasy.  But your peace, your shalom, can I feel that today?  Can you give me some more of that today?

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace.  In this world you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

Great, thanks for that reminder, God.  This life isn’t going to be a piece of cake, and we will have trouble.  Right old ray of sunshine you are.  But, you have overcome the world, even overcome death.  At a time like this, that’s easy to lose sight of.  But thank you for the reminder, and for overcoming the world.  It made all the difference.

john

“There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” Ecclesiastes 2:1,4

Yes, a time for everything.  Even Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus.  But remember what He said just before He went to the tomb, to Martha? 

“I am the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.  Do you believe this?”  John 11: 25-26

Yes, Lord.  I believe.  But help my unbelief. 

I don’t have all the answers.  I can’t explain why my uncle’s life was ended on this earth.  I don’t know how best to fill the hole that is left in his absence.  But I do know where to start finding peace:  At the foot of the cross, in the arms of Jesus.

Thank You

God's love, Love, Prayer, Waiting,

By Kristen Entwistle

As my family gathered around the table last week to celebrate Thanksgiving, I found myself caught up in the to-do list.  Is the table set?  Is the right tablecloth on the table?  Is the pumpkin pie made?  Is the turkey carved?  Why isn’t the gravy thickening?  Are the candles lit?  Why isn’t everyone at the table?  Oh no, we forgot the butter!  Are the sweet potatoes done?

After the dishes were put away, the pie and turkey had been consumed, and the Lions won (what!!), I finally turned my attention to giving thanks.  It wasn’t about the turkey, or the pie, or the game of Dutch Blitz I won, or even football.  It’s about saying, “Thank you” even when you don’t think you have anything to be thankful for. 

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Thank you in the midst of the unknown, in the middle of cancer.  Thank you in the midst of funerals and hospice care.  Thank you even when the world and its violence doesn’t make sense.  Thank you in the middle of the falling apart, the impossible, and the unexplained.

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It’s thank you when all you see around you is the darkness, the violence, the unknown.  It’s thank you for what I have, even if it seems so little – it’s more than I deserve already.  It’s thank you for every day, not just this day, the day that reminds me to be thankful.  It’s thank you for the food on my table, and the people around it, both near and far.  It’s thank you for life, and love, and learning, and growing.  It’s thank you for the cross.

Thank you for Your grace – because it is something freely given that I do not deserve, or have to earn.

Thank you for Your love – because it is perfect, holy, and true.  It is so much more than I ever can imagine.

Thank you for Your mercy – on me, a sinner.

Thank you for Your Son – the Savior of the world, whose advent we await with confident expectation this season.

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Loaves And Fishes

Broken, Prayer, Testimony

By Kristen Entwistle

On the first Sunday of every month, you’ll find me at a local physical rehabilitation center in the early afternoon.  Along with other talented musicians and speakers, we lead a short worship service for the residents.  Last month, our normal speaker was out of town, and our back-up speaker was ill.  It looked like our entire worship team was going to be our lead guitarist and myself, and that the speaker…well, it was going to be me.

I should probably tell you at this point that I had lost my voice due to the cold I had, and so I couldn’t sing, let alone be heard by the residents.

Yeah, I thought.  This is going to work out well. 

We had many, many people praying for us during this service.  We had faith that God would provide, and that He would be glorified, no matter what.  But God provided more than I could have ever imagined.

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Not only did He provide a pianist, and two other vocalists, He also gave me enough of a voice to be heard for just 15 minutes. 

God bulldozed barriers last month.  He steamrolled my expectations.  He made a way when I thought there wasn’t one, parting the Red Sea right in front of me.

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And true to His sense of humor, you know what the message I gave was on?  Faith. 

Having faith in a God who is able to move mountains, and to use the ordinary for His extraordinary purposes.  Faith in a God who took the sins of the world upon His shoulders, and paid the ultimate price for our sins.  Faith in a God who has conquered death and is now seated at the right hand of the Father.

God reminded me through this short service that even faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.  I took what I had – a barely-audible voice, an imperfect message, all my doubts that I wasn’t the one who should be speaking, but a willing heart – and He made it so much more.

The mere loaves and fishes that our team brought were multiplied a hundred fold, all for His glory. 

So I’m going to keep laying down my loaves and fishes at His feet, asking Him in faith to take what I have and use it for His glory.  No matter how useless I may think my loaves and fishes are, He has a purpose for them, and I can’t wait to see what He does with my humble offering.