Tag / Gratitude

by Jennifer Wells

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can’t let this week pass by without mentioning briefly a few things I’m grateful for.

Justin – He has worked for months on his first Christmas worship project (geared toward small, medium and large churches with orchestra and rhythm band) and today it is finished! I am so proud of him. He has worked for years for different music publishers but this is the first project in his name done mostly in our home studio, so we are excited. We are praying that the Lord would use it to encourage worship leaders and point people to Emmanuel during our favorite time of the year.

Grace – The child is losing teeth at an astonishing rate, growing tall and thin, and amazing us with her creativity, kindness, and brilliance. My baby is growing up! She has really matured lately, is learning self-control and to consider others, and truly is my biggest helper with her sweet smile and loving spirit. She loves school and people and could probably rule the world.

Rebekah – She is three, and she is incredibly good at it. She is hilarious, disheveled, loud, sweet, creative, and absolutely lovable. She keeps us hopping, laughing, and is the reason our entire house needs to be repainted and recarpeted. She also loves school and loves people and is fearless to a point that we are sure we will never be able to rest because she sees the world as one giant adventure made for her enjoyment.

Family and Friends Old and New: Oh how I have been blessed with family and friends. I am so grateful for all of you – you challenge me, bless my life, give me hope, and make me love the Lord more.

Happy Thanksgiving, people I love. May God bless you and give you hope.

by Jennifer Wells

Family Talk

I have an amazing friend named Jan, and she truly is one of the women I want to emulate in my life. She brilliantly shines Jesus and grace and beauty and love. Many of you reading this have been impacted by her and love her dearly.

She has this expression she uses often, and I love it. She’ll be sharing something, and right before she shares, she’ll say, “This is family talk.” When I hear it, I feel treasured. I know she considers me family. She trusts me. Also when I hear it, my spirit agrees with her. We are family. We share a purpose and a Father. We can rejoice together in the good and pray together in the hard because we give each other grace.

Family talk.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied. Acts 9:31

I was talking with Justin and another friend this week about the family of God. We certainly have our moments of frustration and division. We certainly have been through struggles together and sometimes there are hurts that need to be healed. But still we are family. We rejoice when God uses a member of our family to bring Him glory, wherever that may be. We pray when a member of our family is hurting. When someone from the outside of our family criticizes someone inside of our family, we can get a little defensive.

When I joined the family of God, it was at a large precious church that I still adore. Many many people became my family members at that place. I had father-figures and mother-figures and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters all over the place. We saw God move there. We were used by God to do big things there. It was an amazing time.

Image courtesy of calvaryinglewood.org

A few years later, that place went through some struggles. There was hurt. Many of us scattered all over the place during that time of transition. We were like baby birds pushed out of the safe warm nest. For a while there was some division and confusion and hurt. There were things we all needed to confess and forgive. We needed to let go of the former things (Isaiah 43:18). But if you look around that family, whether people left or stayed, wherever people landed, God continues to use us. He took us from ministering at one church to ministering at that church plus a dozen more. He was faithful. He did not give up on us. We healed. We grew. We were forgiven for our part in the struggle. We forgave others.

We are family – even across the miles and across the hurts. We don’t have to agree on everything because we agree on the important things. We can still rejoice in the good, we can still ache and pray in the difficulty, because we are family.

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. I appeal to you, brothers,by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. 1 Corinthians 1:9-10

We serve in an area with many churches. And it’s easy and human to compare and compete a little. It’s easy to focus on our differences and not on what unites us. But we are not called to live easy and human. We are called to be set apart. We are commanded to rejoice with each other and pray for each other. God is moving in many ways across the world, and every move He makes deserves to be celebrated by us all whether we have a part in it or not. Because we aren’t just an organization, we are parts of an organism. We are family, parts of the same body. We are joined together with Christ, and there is no room for division in this body.

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1-6

I am just filled with gratitude today for my family. I want each of you to know I love you and thank my God for you – truly. You have welcomed me into your family, and you have welcomed my brave wonderful husband and my beautiful little girls. You have treated us with grace. You love us, and I am so grateful for you. I love the Lord more because I know you and because you have treated me with love. I am grateful.

by Jennifer Wells

The Lord is Pleased with You

I am loving all of the gratitude posts on Facebook. It is beautifully complementing the things I am reading in One Thousand Gifts and it made me think of something that happened to me earlier this year.

Back in April, on a random Wednesday, I received a text message from my friend Stephanie. It simply said, “The Lord is so pleased with you, Jennifer Wells.” When I got it, tears rushed to my eyes and I sat for a moment rereading it over and over.

The Lord is so pleased with you.

I think it was probably one the most grace-filled moments of my adult life. Stephanie doesn’t know it, but she taught me a lot about the Father that day.

We so often focus on the ways we fail our precious Father, but on that day, I was reminded that I also please Him. I write often about our challenges with our children, mostly to lighten the tension of life with tiny people and relate to other moms. But even during all my moments of frustration, vulnerability, and confusion about being a mom I can tell you this, I am pleased with my girls. In fact, I am delighted by them. They captivate me. I could sit down with you for DAYS and tell you their wonderful, beautiful, unique, and most-special-in-all-the-world characteristics.

If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7:11

Think about this: we are flawed, evil, kinda crazy people who really can’t even love unselfishly, and yet we can be pleased with and captivated by our children. How much more then can our Father, who is perfect and loves perfectly, be pleased with us?

I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3

Since getting that precious text from my friend, I will look around at my friends and family who are quietly choosing faithfulness in a world that is unfaithful, and I will think, “The Lord is pleased with you.”

  • My dad, fighting to change lifetime patterns, pursuing righteousness and right relationships with others. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My husband, faithful and righteous, leading his family and his church to worship the one true King, even after facing some seriously challenging circumstances the past few years. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My mom, adjusting boundaries and opening her heart to trust good people in relationship for the first time in her life. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My daughters, learning to obey and consider others when every instinct in their bodies wants to fight for their own way. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My brother, who fights to press into Christ and lead his family in wisdom and righteousness in a world desperate to corrupt. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My sister, who came off the mountaintop to face life in the valley, and still chooses to trust the one who met with her face-to-face, even though she may not feel Him like she once did. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My sister-in-law, who fights for the souls of children every single day with her compassionate and wise heart. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who just lost the relationship with the man she thought she would marry, and yet she trusts in the Lord who loves her. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who works in an incredibly difficult environment that breaks most people, and yet she goes in faithfully and works as unto the Lord even when it seems impossible. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who has experienced more loss this past two years than anyone should have to face, and yet they choose joy and trust in the God who is near to the brokenhearted. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who faithfully picks up and moves across the country in grace and acceptance and jumps in to friendships to be a light in the lives of others. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who trusted the Lord to leave a career and stay at home with her child(ren), despite the changes that would bring to their lifestyle. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who lives in a world of uncertainty and challenge and yet is a light to those around her as she chooses to trust in the God who holds the world in His hands. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who is waiting for the referral of the child(ren) who will change her life and her home forever – choosing to live out James 1:27. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who has opened her home to a broken and hurting child, who has faced trials that demonstrate just how real the enemy who seeks to destroy actually is, and who is everyday seeing victory as the Lord fights for the heart of her child. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who everyday chooses grace as she navigates challenging relationships within her family and continued financial pressure that would overwhelm most people. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who trusted the Lord with his family and his career and gave praise to the God who is faithful in good times and bad. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who is creative and brilliant and each time I am around them, I want to be more free in who Christ made me to be. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who is single years after when their plan had them married, and yet they are faithful and trusting in the Lord to work it all out for good. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who quietly pleads with the Lord to heal and fix the broken places inside, trusting that He is all-powerful and faithful to finish what He started. The Lord is pleased with you.
  • My friend who lived through the terrible thing that threatened to break her heart and spirit, and instead of becoming bitter became a person drenched in grace for the hurting. The Lord is pleased with you.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

I am grateful for the examples of hope, power, grace, peace, joy, and faith lived out by the people around me. You inspire me.

In this season of gratitude, I am grateful for you and for the Lord at work in you.

by Jennifer Wells

One Thousand Gifts

I’ve started reading Ann Voscamp’s book, One Thousand Gifts. It is admittedly not the easiest read, but I’ve found it really powerful and inspiring.

The book is about the ingratitude inherent to our sinful human nature (evident from the beginning in the story of Adam and Eve) and how choosing to give thanks in our day-to-day lives is an act of deliberate redemption. Focusing in particular on the life of Christ, Ms. Voskamp demonstrates this idea by showing how often Jesus chose gratitude, particularly in challenging times, and how this was a part of His redemption of the world. She theorized that when we acknowledge the grace all around us and give thanks, we begin to see the Lord more fully. Just as ingratitude is inherent to our sinful nature, gratitude is a defining characteristic of the redeemed life.

In the book, she began keeping a journal of things she was grateful for, and it changed her. She kept in her purse a book full of micro-moments that proved to her that God was real and loved her completely. In the end, she had listed over 1000 things she was grateful for, and her attitude and countenance had shifted in the process.

“The greatest thing is to give thanks for everything. He who has learned this knows what it means to live..He has penetrated the whole mystery of life: giving thanks for everything.” – Albert Schweitzer

“The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world.”

“We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks. Thanksgiving is the manifestation of our YES! to his grace. Thanksgiving is inherent to a true salvation experience; thanksgiving is necessary to live the well, whole, fullest life.”

Many women, myself included, have taken up the challenge to list our blessings. In doing this – I have found that my prayer life has definitely shifted. I have realized just how surrounded and covered I am by grace, all day everyday. My blessings will easily number in the thousands when I have finished listing them (if I ever really finish). In addition, I have begun to acknowledge, even in the challenging things in our life, that there is always a thread of grace and provision. Seeing those things with gratitude has begun to lift some of the weight of this past few years, and for that I am grateful.

I think there is definitely something to this book and this idea. I won’t share my 1000 gifts (although rest assured most of you number among them) because it is so personal to me – but I wanted to share about the book for anyone like me who needs to view life through a slightly different lens.

I’m grateful.

And I’ve realized that’s a pretty powerful thing.

(All of the quotes above come from One Thousand Gifts)

by Jennifer Wells

He Even Answers The Silly Prayers

This is a long story – but I have done my best to condense.

Every January, I get to produce a very large event in New York City.  This past year, about six weeks before the event, I was told that President Barack Obama had been invited to speak and that it was a distinct possibility he would accept the invitation.

So for several weeks, as we prepared for the event, I prayed and daydreamed about what I would say if I was granted 5 seconds, or 30 seconds, with arguably the most influential man in the world.

As the event neared, and the door remained open for him to come, my excitement rose, but with 48 hours remaining before the event, we were informed that he could not attend.

So fast forward to this week… I was catching a flight to DC for another event.  Because of an error in booking, I had to take a connecting flight out of Atlanta and was massively delayed because of a freak thunderstorm.  It was very frustrating, but during that delay, I got to know the person in the seat next to me.

She was a beautiful woman in her early 30s, very polished and polite, who had jumped on my plane in a last-ditch attempt to reach DC that night.  We talked about faith (she was reading a Christian book), and laughed at our shared entrapment in a tin can during a violent storm.  About 2 hours into our delay, when we had established a great rapport, I asked her what she did for a living.  She already had asked about me and knew I was from Dallas and that my husband was in ministry.  To answer my question, she very sheepishly told me she worked for the President’s Administration.

I smiled to encourage her and told her that I pray for our President and how proud I am of what they are doing to serve our country.  She seemed relieved and said she was very thankful to hear I supported them in prayer.

She opened up and told me about how she got the job, about prayer meetings they hold to pray for the President and Mrs. Obama, about the difficulty and excitement of the job.  It was amazing to hear her heart for serving our country and how she came to work there.

I told her about my thwarted possibility of meeting the President in January and laughed about how I had prayed about what I would say given the chance.

She asked me what I came up with.  I told her I had decided I would tell him I was proud he was our President, and that I loved his family, and that as a Believer in Christ I was praying for him.

She told me that she was good friends with the leader of the President’s Faith-Based Initiative and that she wanted to tell him that she had met a Christian from Dallas who supported them and prayed for them.  She then asked me if there was any advice I could give them to reach more people like me.

I almost teared up – what a question!  I told her that my personal issue – my heartbeat – is for the orphan.  About how God is moving people across the church to adopt and care for the orphan in a mighty movement to be Jesus to an entire generation of children who deserve all the love in the world.  I told her how the Adoption Tax Credit was a huge benefit to people like us wanting to reach out, and that I feared in all of these budget cuts that the credit would be allowed to expire, or be reduced or even cut out altogether.  I told her that in my personal opinion,  if they could advocate for that, working with church leaders, that together we could partner to care for “the least of these” and Christians would be able to be Jesus to thousands of kids.

She nodded and very seriously told me she would pass that idea on.  As we neared DC, I told her how glad I was to meet her and how I enjoyed talking to her.  I committed to pray for her and she sincerely thanked me.  The Lord really allowed us to connect and I felt like I was leaving a friend.

That night, as I reached my hotel room, I continued to think about my time with her.  I Googled her name and found out, to my great surprise, that she is a VERY senior staff member in the Commerce Department.  There are articles written about her  all over the internet.  I was not just chatting up an intern – as I assumed.  I was allowed, I believe by God, almost 6 hours to express my heart to a leader in our nation and a person very close to our President.

That night I laughed as I began to pray.  I have so little faith and the Lord continuously surprises me.  I had prayed for 5 or 30 seconds with the President, where I’d be nervous and watched by Secret Service, and instead He gave me six hours with a senior member of the President’s staff, where I was totally relaxed and unaware, during a crazy thunderstorm that had trapped us both on the same plane.

I got to advocate for the orphan, and I hope I was able to represent Christ well.

I know many of you disagree with our President, as do I on some major issues.  And I know many of you, given the chance, would have said something very different.  But I am so grateful for the chance I got to speak my heart to my friend.  I believe it was an answer to prayer, and I pray the Lord would use it for His great glory.