India's Cry for Help

Friends and dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

          Please be praying for India.  At this time my brother is corresponding with a pastor from India who is asking for a great many prayers.  We do not know their location or the names of anyone in the ministry, but I do know that prayer is definitely needed.
          I want with all of my heart to help and send money and things to the ministry.  I need all the prayer I can get as well! I have been praying for this sort of opportunity for some time now and I don't know what to do!!! Pray that God would point me in the right direction.

Blessings,

~Rachel

These Scars

        These scars were inflicted for you.  They were torn into my body that you may not carry the wounds of your own sin.  I was beaten beyond recognition, mocked to the point of extreme humiliation.  I was shamed and spit upon.  My back was lain open for the things I did not do.  My hands were pierced through so that I may hang from a cross because of the desires of man.  Willingly I was led to my death.  The most gruesome death in history; that you may live.  My Father turned from me, that you could see.  The world was upon my shoulders as I watched the Roman soldiers gamble for my clothes.  Greed yet gripped their hearts, but I cried, for they knew not what they were doing.
        I died that day.   I was lain in a tomb...
...Three days passed and then I rose again.  These scars in my hands, the raised lashes across my back...they are for you.  They are the bitter sweet memory of what I suffered for your sake.  I, Christ Jesus, the son of God and Man have died for you one death, I love you so much that I would die a thousand times to save your life once more.
       The reason why I tell you this is so that you may understand.  The one thing that can express the depth of my affection for you are These Scars.

 ~ Jesus

Broken People are Beautiful People

          Every soul is broken to a certain degree.  Some don't even realize their brokenness.  Look around you, you will find broke people, humans that have hurt, been hurt, and pained in their lives.  But is there only pain? Will there always be pieces to shattered lives across the globe?

          God loves broken people.  He also loves to use them for his glory.  There is nothing more pleasing or glorifying to God than when a shattered life is placed before Him, when we ask him to lift us up and put us back together.

          Broken people are beautiful people.  You are a wonderful creation.  I am a wonderful creation.  God has been waiting all of your life for the moment when you would hand him all your brokenness and say, "I can't fix this on my own."

He will look at you and smile, love in his eyes, and a graceful heart.

"I can put you back together."


Beauty and Blessings,

~Rachel

Broken toys and Broken people

          Like a child, sometimes we have to come forward and place the broken pieces before our Father.  Like a kid with a broken toy.  There is no way that we can fix the toy, it is utterly destroyed.  Or, in some cases, the toy isn't so broken.  Maybe a crack, a fallen off weal.  Not too bad, right?  No.  That toy is going to slowly break further as the child plays with it.  Soon the toy will fall to pieces.

          Like our lives.  We are broken people.  We have broken pieces.  Sometimes we try to ignore them, and say that they are only little things.  No problem.  Well, when your brokenness is swept under the rug, it is still there.  And sometimes it festers, grows bigger, and weighs you down.  Soon it will break beyond your repair.

          Don't sweep your broken shatters away, pick them up as best you can and bring them to your Father and say, "Daddy, can you fix it?"

~Rachel

Will you give him your all?

          As we walk in the light do we ever look back to the darkness? As we read the Word of God, do we take it to heart, think upon it, and live it out? Are we plastic people? Do we do one thing and say another? Do we preach from the Book and turn and do something dishonoring? Do we pray for Humility and not try to practice it? Can we truly live as two faced Believers?

         Yes, it is understood that we are going to sin, but look deeper my friends! What is it that flaws the relationship with your Creator? What is it that is slowly pulling you from what you know it right? What is it that calls to you in the quiet? What is destroying the faith that you once knew?

          What is it?

          That thing my friends is what you have to dig out. You have to find, render useless, and throw away. Cast your sin from you, ask Christ to help you fight the battle.

          He wants your whole heart, not half of it! He died all the way. He was whipped, scourged, and placed on the cross. Never once did he cry out in contempt.

          Psalms 53:7 says, "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth."

          We cannot Give our whole heart to Him as he did for us.

         Wrong! 

          Give up that which is drawing you away. Matthew 22:37 And he said to him, "You shall love the lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and with all your mind."

To be honest, I don't think Jesus said this just to say it. I struggle with this as we all do. I have things that put a wall between me and God. Its time to ask Him to help me break it down and push the rubble away. Will you give Christ your all?

God Bless!

~Rachel