Fireside

“It's the national addiction: warmth on chilly winter nights, innocence on Saturday afternoons, the essence of hearth, home and blissful abandon.”
~Patricia Linden

My First Book Review

"It's like having breakfast with a good friend."- Marge

Thanks, Marge. You encourage me.


Just found this review on Barnes and Noble:

a God-lover, A reviewer, 11/03/2006
Both convicting and encouraging at the same time!
What an amazingly honest and refreshing devotional book! Stephanie shares both her victories and her struggles through this insightful, Holy Spirit driven guide for better intimacy with God. Don't be without this book!!

Fall Color

Denbigh took these photos at my parents house. Enjoy.

A Blessed Thanksgiving To You

"in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NASB)

Mourning

A year ago today my brother passed away.

Today, in God's sweet and beautiful irony I was allowed to minister to a family who lost a husband, father, brother, and friend who was near the same age as my brother. Pray with me that this sweet family finds complete healing in the arms of our tender Savior.

But You, O LORD, are a shield about me,
My glory, and the lifter of my head.
Psalm 3:3

Celebrate with Beth Moore

God has been teaching me more and more about Himself through prayer in the last few months. More than anything, the Holy Spirit has used the words of Andrew Murray to bring the hammer down in my life and reveal my responsibility in the relationship. Andrew Murray prayed for 5 hours each day. He believed that what was accomplished in the spiritual realm was the only thing effective and nothing he could do in the physical realm could accomplish what merely asking God could do. He said, " If you want the power of Heaven called down on earth, You have to call it down." That is your blessed ability. We seldom choose it.

On Monday I was telling Denbigh that I felt like God was wanting me to focus specifically on prayer during the next couple months and ask Him to do some specific things. As I showed up to hear Beth Moore speak on Tuesday, you will never guess what she was talking about. Yes, prayer. Specifically, she issued an 8 week prayer challenge to us. Don't you love God's subtle nudgings. 8 weeks. That's a couple months, right?

Here are my notes:

"My Father will give you anything you ask in my name." - John 16:12
"In my name" is not a spiritual formula for answer. God is saying to call on the power of all the He represents, all the power He has, all things He has created. The Name is a summation of all that He is.
"Until now you have not, . . .but you're about to."

We have to come to celebrate complete joy in answered prayer.
*Shake up your prayer life! We are to be experiencing profoundly productive prayer lives.
Phil. 4:6

8 Week Challenge

1. We could use a change in our approach to prayer.
( Grant us a fresh infusion of Holy Spirit power and insight in our lives)

We have to get over approaching prayer as a discipline. We put it in the 'should do' category. We should clean the garage. We should eat better. We should pray. "We shoulds" rarely happen.

The biggest lie is that when we choose God that the fun is over. That this is a purely sacrificial, martyr like pose. When we choose to do the thing and go entirely over, it will be the ride of our lives.

2. We could use a change in our approach to God. John 11:41
Adopt this phrase. "I know that you hear me."
The disciples asked to teach them to pray like that. The thing that made Christ's prayers so different was that He Knew the one who was listening. There is a God and you know Him!

Second thing to adopt: Exodus 15:11 " Who is like you, O Lord, majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?"

3. We could use a change in our approach to Scripture.
John 15:7 and 1 John 5:14-15
wish in John is the Greek word Thelo. Will in 1 John is the word Thelema. They are from the same root word. How does our wish become His will? The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to shape the will of God in our minds. Interact with the Word.
The 'ma' at the end of thelema is result oriented. Once our wish is in God's will it brings about result.

4. We could use a change in our approach to a divine 'no.'

We have to keep praying even if we are afraid that the answer we get will not be the one we want to hear.

Part of the joy of giving is seeing the recipient react. We rarely react or even notice when God answers us. We should act like we do when we receive gifts from people. If God takes an action, He is looking for a reaction.

Why do we, as living, breathing miracles of God who have been restored from the deepest pits act like we are over it. We should still be praising Him!!

Isaiah 40 We should gain strength in the wait. The problem is that we generally focus so much on the wait that we lose strength.
The reason God does not grow tired and weary is because He has complete understanding. He is building up spiritual strength for you when the wait is over.

** I hope I can explain this part correctly:

Matthew 16:19 (NIV)

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

better translated as

Matthew 16:19 (Amplified Bible)

"I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind (declare to be improper and unlawful) on earth must be what is already bound in heaven; and whatever you loose (declare lawful) on earth must be what is already loosed in heaven."

We tend to look at this verse like witches casting spells. (She said if she could bind and lose that she would have been married in 6th grade:)
~ The way the Greek is best translated is to say "Whatever is loosed on earth has already been loosed on Heaven." This is saying that there are storehouses of things waiting for us. There is more than we can ever think of to ask.

Psalm 31:19 The key of this storehouse is the fear of the Lord. The way God's will in Heaven will be on earth is by prayer. Ask and keep asking. Relationship takes place. God's commands are written on the tablets of human hearts. God has no bigger concern than what happens inside you.

5.) We could use a change in our approach to our anointing.
1 John 3:18
Antichrist in Greek is antichristo. Anti means against. Christo is the anointed one. Satan is against the Anointed One. The enemy is after your anointing. It is where your power is.
Our anointing is the word chrisma. The enemy wants to take your effectiveness from you.
Your life is profoundly effective. It is real and not counterfeit. You have what it takes. It is in you.

"Ask in My name with the power of all I have done and am."

Ask.

A Faithful Remnant

I met them... the faithful remnant, the anawinn in Hebrew, ragamuffins in the vernacular (from Brennan Manning).


Warmth. Kindness. The love of the Father. Deeply tender pastor.

That is what we experienced at The First Baptist Church of Santa Anna, TX. I wish I could convey to you what this experience was like for us. It was refreshing to see a group of people who were not about the business of the church. They were simply being the church. Beautiful.


(I hate having my picture taken)











Our speaker Robert Barge from Wherever Ministries. He was challenging, convicting, and wonderfully down to earth. I took several pages of notes. Here are some highlights:

* If you have ever blamed a minister for your lack of spiritual growth, you might need a personal revival.

There are 2 prodigals in the story of the prodigal son. One went to live in open sin and his heart yearned to return to his father. He was restored. The other was the older brother who was there physically and yet worked begrudgingly for his father. He learned nothing of the compassion of his father and seemed to only endure relationship with him. It never says if their relationship was restored.
~ Grace is conditional. The condition is that it must be received.
The privileged of God often begrudge grace given to others even though we have been with the Father the entire time. (ouch) Are you begrudgingly working for your Father and your heart is far from him?
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This is not all we were called to. We are called to complete abandon. We are often so proud of what we give that it hides what we don't.

Most of us are living so below the line of our calling that a godly person would have to backslide to fellowship with us. (ouch again)

We are commanded to ask for daily bread!!

Some of us have to get mad before we will think...(despising prophetic utterance)

If we wait until we are comfortable doing what we are called to do or until we are fully equipped we will never be of any use to the Kingdom of God.

Repent. Believe. Come. Follow Me.

Are you practicing what you have learned in Scripture?
Let go of whatever you are holding onto. Listen to the still small voice of your Father.

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Deny yourself is not saying to deny sin, but the one who craves it

How can I be of any good to the Father's kingdom when I am so wrapped up in mine?

Take up your cross daily (a deadly proposition). It indicates humiliation, suffering, and death. It means to be ready for anything that man might throw at you. This road cannot be turned away from. It ends in death.

When is the last time your commitment to Christ led you to sacrifice anything?

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What we did apart from Church:

Santa Anna is a town of about a thousand people. That always means your accommodations will be interesting. We were not disappointed. We arrived behind a Tahoe with a huge dead deer strapped to the back on a little shelf attached, I assume, specifically to hold dead deer once you kill them. We are met by Ginger, a truly unique and nice woman. This establishment was once a Texas Ranger station and each room is named after an ex-ranger. Our ranger was Ranger Miller. There was a lovely (creepy) picture of him in our room always looking over us. I tried to get Denbigh to take it down and replace it with a picture of Chuck Norris (Walker Texas Ranger). I thought that might make some people confused and that made me laugh. I have an odd sense of humor. We took in the sights and discovered some lovely shops and eateries. We visited nearby Brady,TX and saw our fabulous friends Reece and Kallie who treated Denbigh to birthday lunch. We had dinner with some other friends from Bangs, TX. Those lovely people are Brandon and Joanie Fagan. We were struck by the kindness of many of the people there who kept doting on us. We were particularly struck by Ray and Betsy Jones. Kind and godly cannot even begin to touch on what we saw in these people. We love them.

Ray Jones and Denbigh













The Bird Cleaning Station at the end of our accommodations ( and the mountain!)












Our room and beloved Ranger Miller's star.













The old and gorgeous opera house turned BBQ joint in downtown.


















A view from our room.



Altogether lovely.

Off to Santa Anna

Denbigh has been home less than 24 hours and we are off again to lead worship for a revival in Santa Anna, TX. We have been exceptionally busy and we are praising God for that. May we stay busy as long as He will allow us to be fruitful.

Please keep us in your prayers as we travel and minister.

*Pray for much rest, anointing, and fruit for us.
*Pray for a new guitar for Denbigh (his received an enormous crack in it during his travels to Maine this week. We believe it was dropped in transit). They are around $1,500.00 +.
*Pray Denbigh has a fabulous birthday on Tuesday the 7th.
Think of him when you are voting.

We return Thursday.

A Book In Hand

My first set of books arrived via UPS today. Those words appear terribly calm as I write them. I am not calm. I am an author. I must now think of how I can live a more eccentric daily existence.

The 93 page devotional is for sale at a cost of 10 dollars. Stop by and pick up your copy.

You can also order them online.

Patina on Barnes & Noble

Patina on Pleasant Word Bookstore

(I feel like Bob in the movie What About Bob when he goes sailing for the first time. He keeps telling everyone, " I am a sailor. I sail.")

I am a writer. I write.

I'm For Sale!!

I haven't received my first allotment of books yet (they should be here anytime), but I did see that the book is already showing up for sale in a few online bookstores. It is quite exhilarating. I can't wait to have the book in hand. I will have a book release party. Excitement.

I am a writer. Writers write and people read it. This fascinates me. I am one of those people.

This is terribly interesting.

Thanks be to God who uses the foolish and the weak in spite of themselves. May He receive all glory!

Patina on Barnes & Noble

Patina on Pleasant Word Bookstore