California

Here are a few pictures from our little bit of time sight seeing - of course, the Hollywood sign.

I found that the area of Hollywood and Vine and Sixth Street in Austin are almost identical. The local/eclectic people could have easily been transplanted there from our lovely/unique capital city. I actually could not tell the difference.

I was on the lookout for Audrey Hepburn's star..and somehow got distracted by a pizzeria. I love how Johnny Cash reads the Bible on cd ...so I took this photo of his star.

Wedding!

Casha & Coleman, may God pour out His Spirit on you as you strive to honor and cherish one another.

It was a lovely wedding and reception. The dinner was lovely and the flowers exquisite.
















Flower girl...
















This moment got me! This man Loves his daughter more than any I have ever seen and it was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever been privleged to be a part of.















This is my nephew, Cooper, doing the twist with Denbigh's brother, Brice.














Nana is one of the most elegant and classy women I have ever known. She was beautiful. I had this picture taken for my WONDERFUL husband so he could have a photo of his beloved grandmother Cherry, wife, and baby girl on the way.









*On a sidenote: I learned the value of honoring those around us. I think this will require an entire post...stay tuned.

Leaving On Jet Planes

The Cherry family will be covering America coast to coast in the next few days. Denbigh is headed to the east coast of Maine to lead worship at a four day event with Voddie Baucham. I (and the baby in the belly) are headed to the west coast to Los Angeles to attend a wedding. Keep us all in your prayers. Pray anointing, spiritual fruit, and protection over us. Thank you. May the God of all peace bless you and keep you (and us).

Momentary Stolen Joy

This evening, the publisher called and said they had the first copy of Patina laying on their desk. I will have a copy in my hand in a week. I think I am in shock that this has actually occurred. I wrote a book. Some small part of me is waiting for some catastrophe to happen and me to never see this book. By the end of the evening, I had actually managed to become discouraged and depressed. I keep reminding myself that if the devil can't stop me, he will atleast try to steal my joy. This is how you know you are doing what you are called to do . . . attack. The funny thing is that you never totally grasp that in the moment. You just feel beat down. You feel like no one actually loves you and all your work is in vain. You feel empty. You keep asking yourself why people don't encourage you and you take the martyr's pose. Truth is, it doesn't matter. People are not meant to satisfy. God alone satisfies. It is hard to be this honest. I just told God I was feeling attacked and asked Him to satisfy the emptiness that resides within. I asked Him to encourage me. Now, I am poised to listen. I am poised for joy and celebration. I wrote a book. I am still in awe.

Speak to me, Lord God. Thank you for allowing me to do something that you placed in my heart years ago and I never thought I could do. Thank you that you teach, lead, encourage, and love with a steadiness that rivals all. I love you and I throw off everything that hinders me from basking in your unspeakable joy.

el retazo

El retazo, the remnant.





rem‧nant  [rem-nuhnt]
–noun

1. a remaining, usually small part, quantity, number, or the like.
2. a fragment or scrap.
3. a small, unsold or unused piece of cloth, lace, etc., as at the end of a bolt.
4. A surviving trace or vestige: a remnant of his past glory.
–adjective
5.remaining; leftover.
( a small part or portion that remains after the main part no longer exists )

Why are definitions so intriguing? You can tell a true logophile by their love of definitions. The richness it communicates cannot be shared by trying to capture something in a single word. I love this definition number four. A surviving trace or vestige: a remnant of his past glory.

In the past few weeks I have beheld the remnant. I have seen miracles among God's people that have brought me to my physical knees to worship. This past Sunday I was privaleged to look on as 2 of my friend's saw their children be baptised. One was a foster child and my friend wondered what she had to offer him. God knew. He had a specific plan for this child in her arms.
That was Colleen.

My other friend, Kyna was blessed to watch her first born dipped into the watery grave of the baptismal to rise in newness of life. It is seemingly impossible for me to explain the mother she is. I am in awe. Her daughter has a grasp on the Holy Spirit and a desperation not to be seperated from Christ greater than most adults I know. Kyna has fulfilled the Scripture that says to talk about the things of God when you get up and when you lie down. She has been picked up from the pit and formed into a godly mother. It is a beautiful thing. I am not sure I have seen this done in such a powerful way before.

As I watched her emerge from the water through my own tears, I saw it. The mark. The anointing. The call. One set apart from her mother's womb. He knit in a ministry to Himself when He formed her innermost parts. I wait in anticipation to see what God does with this life.

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Baby Update:
She now has more clothes than me thanks to my mother. Here is her newest outfit. Don't you wish it came in your size?

Come Out Of Her!

Reading revelation Chapter 18 the other day I saw something I had not noticed in my reading before. I have read these few chapters about the wickedness of Babylon several times and studied it at church. I grasped that Baylon was being described as a harlot who lured men into her iniquity. This time in reading it, something in particular struck me. It is Chapter 18, verse 4.

"I heard another voice from heaven, saying, "Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;"

COME OUT OF HER! I think in my other translations it said "come away from her" or something not quite so posing. This time the extreme sexual nature of these chapters was standing out to me. God was not just saying to His people to get on their camel and come home. He was saying for them to take their "male part" out of her and quit making her wickedness fertile with their seed. Come out of her! These people, God's people, Us were/are having grotesque sexual relations with the woman who has been with everyone. This is not Hosea's prostitute. She makes Gomer look like Mother Teresa. This woman was not merely defiled. She is the great defiler. She is not simply under God's wrath. She is the embodiment of everything that incites it. We choose to take the most intimate parts of ourselves and place it in the darkness of everything God hates for our momentary pleasure. Come out of her so that you will not participate in her sins and receive her plagues. All of this for you to ask yourself this:

In what way are you allowing yourself to intimately engage with wickedness?

from Galatians 5
immorality, impurity, sensuality,idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these

© Stephanie Cherry 2006

Revelation 18

Alamo City Christian Fellowship

We loved being there on Sunday night. Denbigh led worship at their Greenhouse gathering. It was excellent. The worship was already thick in that place long before we ever arrived. We were embraced by an overwhelming sense that the Holy Spirit was well pleased to dwell there.
We loved it!

(My spanish word of the day: el efecto invernadero - meaning greenhouse effect)

GHWG.blogspot.com

Alamo City Chrisitan Fellowship

Have You Seen My Toes?

Yesterday, I happened to look down at the floor and I noticed something. I can no longer see my toes when I look straight down. I was explaining this to Denbigh and he couldn't believe I couldn't see my toes and then he got distracted talking to the baby in my belly. This led me to an attempt to photograph my vantage point. I have found that the decreased blood flow to the head makes it quite easy to amuse myself. I actually enjoy this aspect of pregnancy. I laugh all the time.

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On to more serious matters, I do not pray enough. I am praying. I love praying. I am praying and probably look great if I compared myself to some people, but I am not praying as one who has lived through the fire and been delivered from the lion's mouth. I pray as one who merely believes. I am desperate to pray as one who trusts, as Andrew Murray says, that my prayer calls upon the power of God Himself. (God, help me pray more boldly and trustingly. Let me know you more intimately.) Everywhere I turn I get hit with it...it's Andrew Murray. It's Beth Moore. It's Marcus Mohan. It's the HOLY SPIRIT! All I keep hearing is my sweet Savior saying..."We have been through the depths of hell together and I heard you. Ask me again. Ask me for them. Ask Me for your neighbors, for wrecked marriages, for your pastor. Ask Me. Praise Me for how I have already answered you." One thing I like that Marcus quoted on Sunday was that we will achieve nothing if we do not learn to interact with the person of Jesus everyday. Let us weep, cry out, & surrender to know Him.

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I stole this from Justin Childer's blog:

Demand #6: Listen to Me

From What Jesus Demands of the World by John Piper:

"Page after page of the New Testament Gospels pile up reasons to turn off the television and listen to Jesus."

Godly Legacy

Denbigh and I have started working on a Legacy album to preserve the legacy of what God has done for our families throughout the generations (like the stones Joshua set up in Joshua 4). We have been going through some wonderful old photos and I thought I would post a few. Here are a few of Denbigh's paternal grandparents, Nana and Granday (Delmon and Jean Cherry). They had a powerful spiritual effect on my husband. It is one I hope he passes along. Granday was dying of cancer last year and still witnessing to people from his death bed.

You Have Not Glorified

Conviction and repentance have come to my house this week. I have been shown 3 ways in which I am not pleasing in my various studies. I do these things, but not on the levels that God has and is calling me to do them. Things in my life are shifting toward a more thankful existance. I thank God that He never allows us to become stagnant in His Word. As I look at the amazing things that have been accomplished in my life by the Mighty hand of God, I am ashamed of how little I have loved, prayed, and praised.

You do not love.
You do not pray.
You do not glorify.

"But the God in whose hand are your life breath and your ways, you have not glorified."
-Daniel 5: 23

"And He said to them, "It is written, 'MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED A HOUSE OF PRAYER'...
-Matthew 21:13

"By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
-John 13:35

"Praise and Prayer

7 I will tell of the kindnesses of the LORD,
the deeds for which he is to be praised,
according to all the LORD has done for us—
yes, the many good things he has done
for the house of Israel,
according to his compassion and many kindnesses.
8 He said, "Surely they are my people,
sons who will not be false to me";
and so he became their Savior.

9 In all their distress he too was distressed,
and the angel of his presence saved them.
In his love and mercy he redeemed them;
he lifted them up and carried them
all the days of old."

-Isaiah 63:7-9 (keep reading this chapter on your own)

*photo of Cape Grace, South Africa
What I am reading: Beth Moore's Daniel Bible study & Andrew Murray's The Ministry of Intercessory Prayer (2 pages into it, I was convicted of my lack of prayer)

The Wisdom of Tenderness

This book is an absolute Must Read. I bought a copy for my brother the minute I finished...and I took 9 pages of notes from it. I am sure you will hear more about it.

Synopsis:

Brennan Manning believes that all changes in the quality of life must grow out of a change in our vision of reality. Calling into question the prevailing vision of God as a remote overlord who alternately purveys judgment and blessings to his creatures below, Manning shows how this distorted image of God leads to a spirituality that is shallow and ultimately in conflict with the message of the Gospel.

Rooted in the author's compelling grasp of God as a loving parent, The Wisdom of Tenderness gently invites us to embrace the unfathomable mercy, grace, and love of God. By relating to God as a loving parent with the heart of tenderness, we can develop a spiritual life that allows us to let go of worry, stop organizing everything as a means to an end, and begin to live fully in the awareness of God's infinite grace and mercy in each moment. As we come to accept the tenderness of God, our hearts will begin to open, our minds can discern truth, and we can more readily see the divine in others.

A profound exploration of the challenges of Christian living, The Wisdom of Tenderness leads readers to a greater experience of compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, and reverence.

The Reality of Appearance

John 13:35
(Amplified Bible)

By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].





This is one of my favorite Scriptures and it brings forth a powerful question. If the only distinguishing characteristic of a disciple is love, would your position be apparent to others?

Would they recognize you by your love?

One of Life's Great Paradoxes

"One of life's great paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender. To these elements must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Together they will lead to wisdom and tenderness."
-Brennan Manning, The Wisdom Of Tenderness