Monday, May 26, 2008

A Call to Love


" Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,
that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word,
so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.
"Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh."
This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.
However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband. "
~Ephesians 5:25-33

I am Engaged


Many of you have written asking me to tell the story of my engagement, unfortunately I forgot my camera, so you will have to wait a little longer for pictures. I hope that this will do for now.

Tucker Martin is from Georgia, and has some good old southern roots. He attended the Missionary Training School in Oaxaca, Mexico for the 2007-2008 school year. I have known him since September, but we just recently started seeking God about marrying one another, and officially started seeing each other in March. These last couple of months have been incredible as I have waited on the Lord in this and have sought his glory over everything else. My prayer from the beginning has been that we would both fall more in love with the Lord as we got to know each other, and I still feel like I am falling more in love with Jesus as I fall in love with him.

May 21st 2008, Wednesday, Tucker picked me up and handed me a bouquet of red roses, it was our date day and I was so excited to see him. We jumped into a car that he had borrowed for the day and drove about 20 minutes up the road to a river running through a ravine that we had been told about. As we drove and talked, we scanned the river to find the "perfect" spot. Then we found it, the view overlooked the Oaxacan mountains and as you drew close to the river you saw it collect in peaceful pools following small trickling waterfalls. We decided to stop and hike down to the river. It was so peaceful and I found myself wanting to know what God had been teaching Tucker that week.

He opened the bible to Ephesians 5:25 and began to read through the end. The passage calls husbands to love their wife as Christ loves the church, giving sacrificially of himself so that she will be pure and blameless. Immediately my mind began to apply the words of Paul to our church planting movement, I was strategizing about how to plant churches that were immersed in this kind of love when Tucker went down on one knee. I could hardly breathe as he told me that he loved me and wanted to love me like this passage called him to for the rest of his life. I felt like I was in a movie, while the reality of the ecstatic joy surfacing in my heart became real.

When he placed the ring on my finger a few minutes later, I sat taking in the legacy of love that decorated my hand. His mom had offered him the ring after I visited with his family in April, it was the same ring that his father, Mr. Greg, had used to ask for Miss Donna's hand many years ago. There was such a spirit of thankfulness and joy as we sat next to that peaceful river. The urgency to praise the Lord came quickly, and as I strummed the strings of the guitar and praises began to rise from our lips to His ears, the presence of the Lord filled that place. I will never forget sitting on that stone in the middle of the Oaxacan Mountains, worshipping and praying to the Lord of lords with my husband to be. Thank you for celebrating this with me. I pray that we will learn to love each other like Christ calls us to, and that many will embrace Christ's love through the testimony of the life of unity and love He has called us to. Your prayers are much needed and priceless to us, I can not wait to introduce him to all of you back at home.

I love you all.
Pam

Friday, May 2, 2008

Miracle from Boulder





Praise God, I have a new hard drive and I am all set to go.



At the beginning of April my family came together for the first time in years to celebrate the life of my aunt Barbara who had passed away in late March. I returned to Colorado from Oaxaca and was greeted by an environment of incredible unity that can only be attributed to answered prayer and the work of the Spirit to unite my family. My two beautiful cousins from New York came for their mother's funeral, and I knew that barb would have been ecstatic to see us all together again after 12 long years.

My aunt had fought against schizophrenia for most of her adult life and unlike my mother and my auntie, who can separate Barb's life by the time in her life when she became "sick", I only knew my mom's older sister in this confused state. My aunt Barbara was an artist, an extraordinary artist, who expressed the way she viewed the world around her through sketches, water colors, inks, and other modes of art. After my aunt was diagnosed, she found it more difficult to artistically express herself due to the medications she took that caused her hands to shake. I never feared Barbara, but I always sensed that she felt trapped inside a world of voices unable to separate external reality from the internal.
My family had prayed for freedom for my aunt for years, however I think it was my mom's oldest sister, my aunt Carol, who had tasted the saltiness of her own tears as she mourned over Barb's imprisonment. I still remember the night I found out about my aunt's death. I went outside under the Oaxaca sky and wept, wondering if she had ever known the heart of the Savior who had given everything for her ultimate freedom. I wept because I had no idea if I would ever see Barb again. I wept because I didn't know if I would ever be able to harmonize with Barb again as she hit notes that were literally impossible to reach in her high soprano vibrato. I wept because I would miss the socks hanging from the Christmas tree, her little gifts of love. I wept because I didn't know if she would ever experience true freedom from the prison her mind had become.
And then God answered my weeping and dried the tears of my family. From the mental hospital my dear aunt had lived in for the past two years came stories of an extraordinary love. Barbara had spent her last years loving the unlovable of this world through the power of Christ. She prayed for those in pain, sang hymns to those in despair, pushed the wheel-chair bound to eat with her, and showed the love of Christ tangibly to the least-loved of our society. Even after her death, the celebration of Barb's life and the freedom she had found through Christ was a testimony to many who attended her funeral. A handful of family friends, co-workers, and even family members acknowledged a need to know the one true living God who could set Barbara free. Thank you Jesus, you are so good. And I praise you because now yours is the only voice that Barb is hearing, and I know that her voice is ringing in praise to you.