clay and rags

Isaiah 64 6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. 7 And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee: for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. 8 But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand. Last fall I was really down, to be honest, in about all ways one could be. I was discouraged, I needed something that I could do. I needed a joyful purpose. Do not get me wrong, I love my husband and love the kids and so, so excited about being a grammie and please do not think for a second I don't, but most of my days are spent not being able to drive. To be really honest when you hurt all the time you hurt worse when your in a quiet house. Most people with Fibro are overachievers. I worked two jobs when I got sick, taught Sunday School, had Jared still at home, and did ladies ministry. Then I got sick and here I am in a empty quiet house. So I prayed for God to give me something I could do and bless others with. I never thought of myself as crafty or artistic. So that had never even entered my mind. One day while going through the Goodwill store I see a bag that a comforter went in but it was filled with rags. The tag on it said quilt rags. I thought I will make a quilt for our bed. I will redo our bedroom. Well I am still working on that, but basically I have taught myself to sew or teaching myself. At first by hand but then I drug my sewing machine out and found it on you tube and taught myself how to thread it. Sewing and any kind of crafts have become my joyful purpose I asked for. I love sewing little things and seeing people smile. Yesterday I was trying to make a piece of jewelry out of lace. That did not work the lace was too wide. When I looked at it though I thought I could do some thing with it. I have some old clay pots and my quilt rags and I put them together and made something beautiful. I was looking at it when God spoke to me and said, I have done the same for you. I heard your cry and I have answered thee. I have molded you from a piece of clay and some old dirty rags and I have come to live inside of you. I think you're beautiful. Some times we need word pictures, and yesterday God gave me one I will cherish.

Thirty years ago today

  I remember when we first met.  He had on a vest with pins and buttons all over it, red permed hair, leather arm bands  with spikes and a earring clip dangling  was with his mom and they came through my line at K-mart.  He worked there too.  He asked me if I wanted to go to a Haunted House with him.  I had not  ever been to a haunted house and I have not still to this day. I wasn't' sure though I wanted to go anywhere with him.  People laugh when I say this but I was kind of afraid of him.  Some people from work decided to try and talk me into going with him.  They decided to go as a group and several promised they would take care of me.  .   So we went to eat and then instead of the haunted house we went bowling.  That gave him reason to laugh with me for the next 30 years cause I lost the ball, it flew backwards off my hand.

We were young and dumb and for the next six months broke up with each other I don't know how many times.  Mainly because we got our dating advice from the employees of K-mart, not from God.  This was not a blue light special it was important it should have been nurtured and guided through prayer but like I said, we were young and dumb.

Thirty years ago today he asked me to marry him.  It was an Easter Sunday and of all places we were at Po' Folks restaurant. Do you remember those?  His family where all there for it was Easter and they where having family dinner.  Maybe not the most romantic of proposals but it worked.  Our parents said we would never make it.   There is a Stangenberg curse I was told no man in the Stangenberg family ever stayed married to one woman.  Instead of making me run it made me more determined to prove them wrong.

Thirty years later we almost have things right, we spend more time on our knees then we did then.  God comes first not his guitar, and his family we are a close second.  He has been there with me through 20 plus surgeries and I have been there for him during the hardest seasons of his life.
He is my best friend and I am honored to be his wife.  We have both made mistakes and we have hurt each other and their have been times neither of us where sure we were going to make it.  We did and we will.  For I am convince with out a shadow of a doubt that God put us together.  What God has put together no man can put under.

God has blessed us with a wonderful son, who some how turned in to a wonderful Christian man despite of our failures as parents. Some times I say we taught him more on how not to do something then we did the right way.  We have a beautiful daughter in law that God gave us.  We are certainly blessed. We are members of a wonderful Church, that still teaches and preaches marriage, morals, manners, and family among other important things.
   I love you Honey.  Thanks for being my friend, my protector, and the Lord of our home.  I am glad we have grown up together and we will grow old together even though some times we still reap from being young and dumb.  God has never left us or forsaken us even the seasons we left Him.

I have truly been blessed.

Today as we close out the month of November in the year 2014, it is a day of reflection.
I reflect back and I think of the year and what it has brought to me.  It has brought heart ache and joy, we have seen things that could have been tragic turn in to triumphs, we have seen God's movement and we have felt God's silence.  We have learned patience and we have a new respect for Job.  Most of all our level of trust in our Lord has grown to a different level.  I find there are very few plan B's in my life because my trust for plan A, God, has grown.  I have more faith in Him then I do in myself and I have not always been able to say that.  I have truly been blessed.

I am thankful for my God most of all.  He is a merciful God.  I remember vividly crying out to him earlier this year, when my health was in a major spiral down, I was angry.  I remember screaming at the top of my lungs, tears running down my face, take me home, heal me or make me stronger but please do not leave me like this.  He chose to make me stronger but I believe He is also healing me.  I have a passion for life again.  Something I think I may have lost.  I am thankful for my salvation and my one on one relationship with my Lord.  I have a long way to go in improving my walk but I think those closet to me see there has been a change in me.   I have truly been blessed.

I want to thank the Lord for my husband.  My for better or for worse, in sickness and health to death us do part.  He is my best friend here on earth.  He knows my fears and my short comings.  He takes care of me and he had done a great amount for my mom too, not because of her as much as because she is important to me.   I want to thank my husband for being here, standing by my side and supporting me .  There are days he catches all my frustrations and all my anger though it is not at him.  He tries to understand the fibro and the lupus, and why some days it hurts to even be touched.  My heart though never wants him to let go.  I have truly been blessed.

I want to thank the Lord for my son, Jared.  He has turned into a wonderful man of God and a wonderful husband to his wife Audra.  He had a great grandmother who prayed that he would be a mighty man of God and if she was alive today she would be so proud.  She would love his dear wife Audra as all of us do.  Jared was my miracle.  He was not suppose to be here with out fertility drugs but God is the maker of life and He chose his perfect time for him to be born.  His faith in our Lord is great and to hear him say … “Audra and I have prayed about it”  Does so much for this mom's heart it makes it want to leap.  I have to truly been blessed.

I want to thank the Lord for my daughter, Audra.  I don't like the words in law.  Audra, is an answer to a prayer prayed for 23 years, that the Lord would let me have a daughter.  It did not work out for us  to adopt but the Lord sure did bless this family when he brought Audra in to it.  She is a wonderful help meet for my son.  You can not stay around her long with out feeling happy or better.  She shines the love of the Lord.  She some day will be a wonderful mom to my grand children.  I love her and I have truly been blessed.













I want to thank the Lord for Cornerstone Baptist Church and Pastor Ron Ralph.  Brother Ron is not just our Pastor, he is our friend.  My church family have been so good to Bob and I.  Many of my sisters, to many to name, have taken me to the doctor, or to see mom.  We are given the living word of God every Sunday and Wednesday, it is not a God is love message.  He is not afraid to tell us what we are doing wrong according to the Bible.   He challenges to be better spouses, better parents, better children, and better neighbors.  He teaches us that there is a literal hell and he preaches the salvation message.  I am also thankful for the music we have and for Bro. David and Bro. Jacob and all the special music we have.  We are a talented church, God has truly blessed us when he led us to Cornerstone.  I am truly blessed.

I want to thank the Lord for my mom and brothers and their families.  The past five years have been very stressful for us and some times we disagree more then we agree, but the bottom line is I wouldn't trade them for any other.  I miss my dad horribly but I know he is in a much better place.  I love my niece and am so proud of her in her walk with God and her new husband.  I am proud of each of my nephews and the talent the Lord has blessed them all with.  I am truly blessed.


I want to thank the Lord for a special friend , cousin,sister.. Lisa.  I never had a birth sister but she and I have been there for one another through most of our storms and victories.  We don't get to see each other much any more but I love her dearly and I know she loves me.  If life was different we would sit down with our dip and chips and diet Dr. Pepper and talk to the wee hours of the morning.  I miss her and love her.  I am truly blessed.

I want to thank God for the material things such as my home.  I want to thank Him for all his blessing that He has given me.  Those I can see and those I can't.  Those I can touch and those I can't.  I thank Him for my husbands job and for blessing us with a good steady pay check and insurance for 20 years. I want to thank Him for the prayer group because they are many women who have blessed my life that I might not have known.  I truly could go on and on and never get through with all that I have to be thankful for. 

Last but not least, I want to thank the Lord for those who believe in me.  For those who have confidence in me that at times I don't have.  For those who believe in my dreams more then I do at times.  For those who rather be truthful with me then just hold my hand and pat it.  The health issues I face now will defeat me if I don't keep going.  There is not time to lay in a ball of pity.  I thank the Lord for those who cheer me on, even if at times it is with a kick in the pants. 

Look up!

In December 2002 life as we would know it changed. The glue in my husband’s family came home from work and had a massive heart attack. I had gone from planning a Christmas dinner with my mother in law to the next day sitting around a cold board room type table with her family making arrangements for her funeral.

Let me stop right here and say this. I had never felt so useless to my family as I did on this day. I have always tried to fix everything. From the time I was a little girl, I would try and fix things so my dad would not fuss on my mom or my brothers. I always did all I could to make my husband have as little stress as he could have. I always wanted my son to have a great childhood, one to look back on with fondness. I sat in the car on the way to look at grave sites, praying.

“Father, I can't fix this. I can't take this pain away. God where are you?”

“Look for me in my creation and in the beauty of nature. There you will see me and there you can draw your strength.”

I opened my eyes as we were passing a little lake and I saw the trees reflecting in the water. I felt the love of God well up in my spirit as if to say,“ I have got this. I am not going to leave you or forsake you in this. Just look for my beauty - look for me.”

When we arrived to the cemetery it was beside an old stone Church. I felt peace sweep over me as I got out and looked around. My mother in law and I had been there and done that before. We had walked that very cemetery when we had attended a craft fair. I watched some squirrels playing around in the fallen leaves. I couldn't help but smile.

“Yes, God I see all your beauty.”

It filled my heart with joy.

Psalm 27:3-5Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

3 Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear:
though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.4 One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after;
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life,
to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in his temple.5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion:
in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me;
he shall set me up upon a rock.

This year has been a hard year for me healthwise, and some other things that have been going on. God reminded me where He said I could find Him. When we think God is not around we just need to stop. We need to look around at the sky, the grass, the trees. The earth is God's canvas and He is the greatest artist there is.

I love it when He puts a rainbow in the sky or when He paints a beautiful sunset, the way He hangs the stars at night. Each one that He has named. The fact that He cares enough about me and my life that he knows the number of hairs on my head.

Luke 12:6-8Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV)

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? 7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. 8 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:

God knows exactly what we are going through. He promised He would never leave or forsake us. Hebrews 13:5. Sometimes though we stop seeking, we stop knocking, we stop asking. Matthew 7:7 I think sometimes He is up there in heaven, tapping His foot with His arms crossed watching us doggy-paddle the best we can in water above our heads, and we are not reaching for our life jacket.

I was reminded of the day when I felt totally helpless and of what God told me. To look around and find Him. I have been carrying things on my shoulders and trying to fix things that, one, are not mine to fix and two, are not fixable by human hands. So I started looking for God again in His word, but also in His creation. I have started taking pictures of God's artwork and it has helped me. It helps with the pain and it is something I am enjoying doing. Who knew seeing things through a lenses of a camera could be such good medicine? I have ideas of things I would like to do, such as taking pictures of all the churches in our county this fall. Sometimes we just need to open our eyes to discover where our help comes from.