You can read these on Vitaliy’s evangelism blog, and I thought I’d repost them here so you can be praying.

Fenevichi

It makes me glad that people are reading the gospel of John and when Edward and I come, we discuss a chapter specific chapter (we’re on chapter 2). So far, there’s not much visible change from their faith, but they are reading-studying. We also talked this time about the 10 commandments, and how Christ fulfilled them for us and gives us His righteousness and justification by faith. 

Tolik starts to learn to play some songs on the accordian, and I also gave them many Christian songs to listen to, some Christian films and radio programs. May God use the power of the Gospel for the salvation of their souls.

I’m glad that my mom regularly comes here, too, for the service, even though it’s 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from her town.

fishing in the village of Kulyabovka

I was getting no bites, so that means it’s time to go home, I thought, heading towards my car. But at the last minute I thought to try one other place. To my surprise, there were bites, although the other fishermen weren’t getting anything. After an hour or two, the bites stopped, and I started driving home.

Along the way to Kiev, I picked up a young man, Sasha, and started to talk with him about God.  о Боге. He works in the police station, and said that right now he has some serious problems He listened attentively and said that I’d changed his perspective about God’s 10 commandments. He was glad that it worked out for us to meet, “although I usually ride in my own car,” he said, “and today it just didn’t work out.” I told him that I also never drive this way and only came out to do some fishing.

I thought: how wonderful what God arranged! Why I was already planning to come home earlier, but God held me back with biting fish even though no one else was getting any bites, and I was able to pick up this guy in order to talk to him about God and pray about his problems.

He has very serious problems and he’s just in a big perplexity, but he didn’t want to tell specifically what was going on, he just kept repeating that he’s having a hard time right now.

He was open to hear about God, although he didn’t decide to do a step of faith. In the end,  I prayed for him and gave him a tract about God, and then we parted.

My kitchen window this morning:

All the snow!

Vitaliy took Skyla out sledding today.

She L.O.V.E.D. it!

She recounted at home (several times) how she got snow in her mouth.

I can see how that would happen!

That’s my sporty girl.

And I WUV her!

Keri Lumm of thegracepost.com interviewed me recently, and posted it here on her blog. You can listen to or read it.

What a unique way she’s expressed friendship to me! We are excited to meet each other in person this spring when we’re in the States.

Thank you, Keri!

It’s like air pressure that I didn’t know existed in my relationships has been  let out.

No one has to be perfect; they can make mistakes; I don’t have to change them. I can’t anyway.

So just like I can peacefully trust God to lead the transformations (i.e., sanctification) in my life, I can peacefully trust God to transform those in my family to be what He wants them to be in His own time.

Vitaliy and I used to argue about child discipline; we’ve mostly stopped arguing, but we still didn’t agree with each other. And from both of us, childlish behavior, mistakes, and sin were mostly met with shame and harshness.

But with barely a word about child discipline, we have both come to a together understanding position on this. (We’ve just spent hours discussing our done-ness in Christ and all the many outworkings of this.)

For examle, Skyla was sitting on the laundry hamper eating dinner with the family the other night. She’s a very antsy kid, it’s hard for her to sit still. And suddenly the hamper flipped down putting her and her plate of food on the floor.

Before, Vitaliy and I both would’ve been upset, ungracious, and made her feel bad.

But without a look or a word, we both sat still for a moment. Then he walked over to pick her up and comfort her and I started cleaning up the mess. Then she sat at my stool (that hamper flips so easily anyway) and ate my plate, and I got another serving and sat on the hamper.

And it’s days of this. We’re certainly far from perfect; I see moments that could be so much better, and I think God is just starting in His making us into the parents he wants us to be. . . .

Skyla hurt Vika, yes, on purpose, she said. Before, I would’ve spoken harshly and done some form of punishment that probably would’ve upset Skyla. But I said, “You know, Skyla, God punished Jesus on the cross for your hurting Vika. . . . You can say your sorry to God and to Vika.” Skyla’s starting to ask more questions about God. I’m not talking about permissiveness or no consequences. Sure, there will be consequences . . . like a damaged (but forgivable) relationship with your sister.

 But I feel so . . . free? Free from . . . I don’t know even. From controlling what I really have no control over? From feeling like I have to make my kids godly? and change Vitaliy to be more godly too, or just sigh and live with it? God’s doing His sanctification work in them, just like in me, and we can live patiently with each other, waiting for God to accomplish in us what’s done in Christ.

I’m not sure about all this. It’s where I’m at right now in all this proces.  

I’ve been thinking about this verse:

Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,  and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. Colossians 2:18-19 

. . . Holding fast to Christ, from whom the whole body grows with a God-directed, God-given growth.

We look at and hold onto Christ and through Him God accomplishes/ed our progressive and positional sanctification.

I’m nervous that somehow my pride will destroy it all. Strange how sins can be unearthing inside me, yet I still have a way to be proud about it . . . .

Bizzare.

Human?

All I can say is: I am in Him and He is all.

I am reminded of what I read in Jeremiah Burrows last night:

But to give you one more particular. As He is all in all in the good we have from God, so He is all in all in whatever we offer up to God: as in descent from God to us, so in ascent from us to God. Christ must come in here. He must be all in all in our services. Though our services be never so good, though they are spiritual, they must still find acceptance with the Father through Christ. That text in I Pet.2:5 is very remarkable for this, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a
spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Mark, to offer up spiritual sacrifices. But though the sacrifce is spiritual, that is not enough to make it acceptable. Christ must come in. Therefore he adds, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

I will be studying 2 Peter 1:2-11; I think this is key in here somewhere, somehow, but I don’t understand it yet.

From my journal today:

Such amazing peace and grace. Such calm in our house and in my heart. Such small expressions of love, patience, and grace are happening.

Thank you, God. You did it–our entire sanctification. And You are doing it daily, momentarily.

Oh God, lead me, humble me more, to understand to the deepest part, what all this means. The kitchen [ugly, small, old] fades away, God. You are there. You are everywhere!

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:2-3 

Lord, it’s all there already I have nothing to do to get it. You did it all! You’ve given me everything related to life and godliness! Everything! You’ve already given it to me!

And I went on for 7 more pages, mostly confessing sins in my heart that God began revealing to me. But each time He showed me a sin, I wasn’t shocked or aghast or disappointed. I just confessed it and opened my heart to God’s transformation. I made no to-do list of changes , imagined no reforms. I just opened my heart to God’s transformation, in His time, His way.

For our children, God, I don’t ask great things for them in order to glorify myself, that I was a great mom—although I have done that—I just ask Your will for them. That they accept your gifts of eternal life, of sanctification; that they, that we all, be pleasing to you because we are just in Christ, because Christ is all to us. There is nothing else.

The other sins are just too normal and too embarrassing for me to post here, honestly.

But it’s been an interesting two days. All day long before almost every interaction with my kids or Vitaliy, this thought comes into my head: “He did it all.” Especially moments where I would’ve a day or two ago gotten irritated or spoken harshly, just that thought, He did it all, makes it all diffuse somehow and calmness is there.

He did it all.

And even when I sin, it’s still OK. I’m still in Him, with Him and He with me.  It’s confessed and life goes on because,

He did it all.

Vitaliy’s been experencing a quiet, but incredible spiritual revolution. It’s not a new revolution, and it’s one that should come to every believer. And he’s been leading me into it, too, talking to me by the hour of things he’s realizing, and as we dialogue, it all begins to dawn in my soul as well.

The understanding that even our sanctification is God’s doing. That we only rest in God.

I want to put this into my specific context so it’s better to grasp because it’s so simple, but so elusive. I’m still trying to not let it go and make it part of the fabric of my being.

When 1) I got married and 2) had children, I was shocked at myself. Anne, who’d been basically an angel, had somehow turned into a monster (I know this will shock some of you ). The anger and sinful feelings, thoughts, words, and deeds that came/come out of me in the pressure of these intimate relationships absolutely shocked me.

Now, I quickly realized that I really never was near-angelic, I just had never been in the circumstances to reveal what had always been in my heart.

I was (still am?) sinning a lot, and I felt far from God often.

Additionally, I was really, really disappointed in myself. I wasn’t the basically-perfect person I assumed! I wasn’t even close.

What did I do? I read books; I always look for answers to my life questions in books. I read the “perfect wife/mom” books that seasoned Christian women write after they have survived their childrearing years. Some of it was helpful and encouraging because I have very few intact Christian marraiges around me to take examples from.

But in other ways, this made things worse. Now I had lists and clear ideas of every exact way I was failing and needed to change, to make a household notebook, a planner, monthly meal menus, be perpetually kind and wise, have a devotional basket with my colored markers for Bible study (OK, this did work before I had kids), always have respectful, edifying speech for my husband, be in love with the kitchen, etc., etc., etc. 

I am not dumping on those books or their authors. They have wonderful, useful advice. They have been my mentors in various ways. And I will get back to them in a bit.

But I will be honest with you. I’m 5 1/2 years into marriage, and I stopped reading ALL those books about 1-2 years ago.

I quit, I gave up, I threw in the towel. It was too depressing, guilt-driven, and I always failed. They set up a standard for me that I couldn’t get myself to, never, ever, ever, no matter how much I wanted it.  

So I’ve just been coasting along, not putting myself into “self-improvement” projects (OK, I still do it sometimes), and basically not putting up a standard for myself as a wife or mom. I don’t mean I was letting myself be the monster inside, just that I debunked my self-book-reading-imposed ideas of who and what I was to be. I read my Bible daily, usually at the mall next door while the kids are either at home with Vitaliy or in the nursery room they have. I have a little prayer notebook, and I journal the life out of myself–well, actually, journaling puts life into me.

So now to Vitaliy . . . .

We’ve been discussing for some months now, since he’s been witnessing about God’s gift of salvation, how much it’s ingrained in us to want to earn it. Everyone thinks that good deeds will get them in with God, even atheists.

Lately, we started talking about how, even after salvation, we start to build our own ideas of holiness, like a ladder of acceptance before  God, and you get closer to God the more rungs you climb up.

I realized that all my ideas about who I am/was to be as a wife and mom and my subsequent disappointment in myself really was my disappointment that I could not work my way into holiness, that I could not sanctify myself.

From Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret ch. 14, excerpts from John McCarthy and H. Taylor: 

A consciousness of failure–a constant falling short of that which I felt should be aimed at; an unrest; a perpetual striving to find some way by which one might continually enjoy that commmunion, that fellowship, at times so real but more often so visionary, so far off . . . .

I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation–but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me. . . . I thought that holiness, practical holiness, was to be gradually attained by a diligent use of the means of grace. . . . But far from in any measure attaining it, the more I strove after it, the more it eluded my grasp, until hope itself almost died out. . . .

Yes, my hope had died out. I had gotten to the point that I realized only God could change me, but would He?

I now think that this striving, longing, hoping for better days to come is not the true way to holiness, happiness or usefulness.

What is the way then? . . . . Vitaliy and I have been talking, pondering. Really, it’s like salvation–the gift of eternal life. How much our human nature wants to earn that! So then we take the step to accept that gift, but then, we want to earn or work for the rest of it! Our sanctification! All the pressure, the striving, trying to apply myself to the means of grace–schedules, planning, to-do lists, Bible study, prayer times . . . Surely I could get to 1) my perceived level of maturity 2) by my own works, right? I mean, don’t I have the Holy Spirit? Am I not depending on Him, praying, trying, asking?

We were talking last night about the passages in Isaiah, where God says He will not share His glory with another. And I realized that God will not share the glory of my sanctification with me.

Read it slowly: God      will not     share    the glory    of my sanctification      with me.

That is a really amazing, earth-shattering insight. He will not share the glory of my sanctification with books either. And now, I will not praise a Christian how-to book as my guiding light and savior (OK, He already took away any hope of that ) 

So what IS the way?

Hudson Taylor and John McCarthy expressed it (see ch.14). I will try to express it, too, using some of their words.

I don’t have to crawl around in a little maze mentally or spiritually trying to figure out how to abide in Him, how to have all my sin confessed and be in a state of “good graces” with God to be abiding in Christ. I had so many sins stacked up, unconfessed,  stuff I will never even remember! I can’t remember what I did this morning, much less all the sins I had committed!

Abiding doesn’t mean sinlessness or even a clean slate.

Repeat: Abiding in Christ doesn’t mean sinlessness, confessing every sin, and having a clean slate.

I am in Him already, I was always There. All I have to “do” is rest.

What does that mean?

It means: ENJOY WHAT I HAVE AND WHERE I AM IN CHRIST.

Hudson: How then to have our faith increased? Only by thinking of all that Jesus is and all He is for us: His life, His death, His work, He Himself as revealed to us in the Word, to be the subject of our constant thoughts. Not a striving to have faith . . . but a looking off to the Faithful One seems all we need; a resting in the Loved One entirely, for time and for eternity.

The peace is incredible, and I’m only starting to taste it. And the wondrous thing about all this?

God’s free to work His transformation in me, in His time, way, and to His eternal glory.

And since Christ has thus dwelt in my heart by faith, how happy I have been! . . . I am no better than before. In a sense, I do not wish to be, nor am I striving to be. But I am dead and buried with Christ–ay, and risen too!–And now Christ lives in me, and ‘the life that I new live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’. (underlining mine)

 Interesting that after this ephiphany, a friend writes this about him:

He was a joyous man now, a bright happy Christian. He had been a toiling, burdened one before, with latterly not much rest of soul. It was resting in Jesus now, and letting Him do the work–which makes all the difference. Whenever he spoke in meetings after that, a new power seemed to flow from him, and in the practical things of life a new peace possessed him. Troubles did not worry him as before. He cast everything on God in a new way, and gave more time to prayer. Instead of working late at night, he began to go to bed erlier, rising at 5 AM to give time to Bible study and prayer (often two hours) before the work of the day began.

When you read that, do you think you need to start rising at 5AM, spend 2 hours in Bible study and prayer, and have more of God’s power? That’s what I always used to do.

No, that’s not it, Anne. Rest in God’s work for you, He did it all already. The more I think about it, plumb the depths, enjoy it . . . the more God is free to work His sanctification and transformation in my life, and it looks like what it’s supposed to look like in my life.

All those books? They stay on my shelves and I refer to them if it’s useful. But they are not my hope.

My Hope has come to Me; He lives in and with me–and I in Him!; He loves me, never leaves me, no not in the sharp tones or impatience. He just gently now reminds me . . . that He is so very near . . . loves me so much . . . that He has already accomplished my sanctification . . .  and my path becomes new, brighter, transformed.

this is Skyla today

Princess crown and princess “mask” which harks back to the recent swine flu quarantine when people were wearing masks. “So I won’t get sick if I wear this?” She runs again to look at herself in the mirror. “I like this mask!” She wants to wear it to sleep.

This is Vika about an hour ago

I have since cleaned up all the mess, but that’s our living room, people! Shocking, I know.

Learning the Russian alphabet on the computer

The girls are amazingly computer literate–they can do more than I could when I first hasd a computer!

Edited in later: She actually wore the mask to sleep! Will remove for safety concerns, but there you go . . .

my sweet baby princess . . . .

Vitaliy is a wonderful missionary, that’s my biased an unbiased opinion

 You can read about some of his witnessing experiences here.

He posts so people will be able to pray, pray, pray.

Amazing how God has been leading him on his own journey in evangelism. He talks about new insights about God and salvation almost every day.

We have a small, boring group Three people actually came!

L2R: Yura & Natasha (married), Sasha

Vitaliy, fearless leader

Yura & Natasha are pregnant! We are doing childbirth prep classes together. See her little tummy?

Our group is considering becoming the evangelism-followup group. That would be neat