My Heart... His Words

It's no secret that grief has placed me on quite a spiritual journey --

A search for meaning in this crazy thing called life that taunts us with happy moments and then knocks us down with brutal blows.

I wrestle with God often, begging for a blessing before surrendering to His breaking of my will over and over again.

In a way, I feel as if allowing God into my grief walk requires a heart of continual wrestling.

Grief with God isn't easy.

Grief with God demands unwavering faith in an extremely shaky world.........

I've met many who choose to walk grief without God, and I've sensed in them no more wrestling.

In their aloneness, they often walk bitter and angry, and they seem to have accepted it as their "lot in life."

No more struggle to find God in their pain.

No more reading the Bible and wondering how a God of love could possibly use their heartache.

Bitterness often looks like an easier option to me.

It makes sense.

I just can't choose it, though, even if it means I could settle down, cross my arms, and say, "Grief, you win."

Sometimes, I'd like to.

Sometimes I'd love to just stop rejoicing with those who rejoice and even mourning with those who mourn.

I'd like to stop "feeling" life and just be a bitter, cold person who stumbles my way to the end.

You know what I mean?

You've seen elderly people who never smile.

Sweet people who've had a rough life, and it's just gotten the best of them.

Somehow it's easy to look at them and say, "I can't blame them. I'd be the same way if I'd lived their life."

But then you see the elderly person who smiles,

and you know he or she has had a rough road too,

and you think, "Wow!"

Just this past Sunday, my husband was telling me about stopping in one of the Sunday school rooms at our church where several of our elderly ladies meet and talking to them for a bit.

He said they were talking about their wrinkles, and he thanked them for the deep creases in their faces from their constant display of joy.

He told me,

"I wasn't planning to say this, but I just told them,

'Thank you for your smiles. They preach more than a sermon ever could.'"

When I'm 85 years old, if the Lord keeps me here this long,

I hope some middle-aged man says the same thing to me.

I hope I can make it to the end with the calm assurance that all my wrestling with God has been worth it,

because He has brought joy over and over again in my sorrow.

I love Him so much.

This is why my heart overflows with excitement today at the opportunity to offer this give-away.

Because just like a smile can preach a sermon, I think our profession can too........

Who better to reach our youth with God's Word than professional skateboarders who have wrestled and found Him along the way and have had their lives turned upside down???

I have so many memories of my boys and skateboarding and roller blading.

I remember Tim and our son Evan building a skate ramp.

I remember knee pads, elbow pads, hand protectors, and helmets, and helping our boys get everything in place and fastened tightly before they ventured out to try a new trick.

I remember a trip my husband took to Louisville and a stop they made in Indianapolis so the boys and their friends could experience "real" skate parks.

I remember the sound of the skateboard moving across our driveway like it was yesterday.

And it warms my heart today to think that some of the guys who inspired them as young boys are now inspiring more young boys in a whole new way.

"Foolishness," is a movie full of skating, Scriptures, and testimony.

And it is now available on DVD!!

You can click here to order your own copy!

On the back of the DVD, you can read these words:

This movie ........

***Empowers your kids to stand against the pressures they face at school

***Gives them what they need to be as fearless in their faith as they are at the skate park

***Shows them you recognize a truth they face daily: A righteous life is the greatest rebellion

Brian Sumner and Christian Hosoi shaped a culture by reaching amazing heights in the skateboarding world, literally and figuratively.

They will tell you themselves, that they were heroes but they were also fools until they decided to lay their sins at the foot of the cross and never look back.

Today, these men are both ministers, reaching out to teens with more than skateboard tricks.

They now reach out with God's Word and their own testimony.

Leave a comment below with your email address or leave a comment on my Facebook page,

and you will be registered to win one of two copies of this powerful message from men who have walked on both sides of life and have discovered the side with God is the side that makes sense.

I Cor. 1:18,

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

Watch these clips to be inspired today.