Greetings from the beach! The first full day here was my birthday, and it was quite a day with the Father. All of the prayers that went up for Abby to sleep made it to the throne; however, DJ woke up at 5:15 AM (and he was sleeping with us, so the "princess" wouldn't be disturbed during her sleep). I hit the beach for a long walk at 6:00 AM and did something I've never done before. My devotional the night before highlighted the longest Psalm--119--as the reading passage, and so I stood on the shoreline and read it aloud before I walked. If you haven't read it recently, it talks over and over about loving the law, knowing it and meditation on it. It was such a reminder of how God wants us to be emersed in His word. So many things that day were a joke about my age, and as I walked I simply could not remember the words to many of our praise songs. I resorted to what I might never forget---old hymns. I sang "Amazing Grace" and thought of the many families in our church who are dealing with an impending death. The sun had hidden behind the clouds as it came up but then burst forth in such radiant glory that it could only make me think of heaven and God's glory. What a day!

We've been highlighting one question each week to pray about. As I think about "what's missing in our ministry to women," I don't believe that fun or enthusiasm are missing. We really captured that with Girlfriends Unlimited and have that fully under our belts. We are lacking goals--how do we move women from interest to belief to disciple? I know that we cannot get hung up on numbers, but if we don't have some measureable goals then we really won't know if we are accomplishing what we set out to do. I think the passion I'd like to see is one to know God's word and have an intimate relationship with him. One of those quotes I copied recently about knowing God's character when we don't understand the circumstances around us seems to be important for all of us to know, especially right now.

The enemy must have been made keenly aware of the time that the Lord and I were going to have because by lunch time on Thursday I began to feel achy all over and have a severly sore throat. I spent most of the remaining day in bed and a great deal of Friday too. We were supposed to go boating with some friends which we had to cancel. I've felt absolutely miserable and DJ had an even worse night sleeping on Thursday night. We totally regrouped last night and got better sleep, and I am fully loaded on ibuprofen. Thank goodness I'm starting to feel better, but what challenging few days it's been.