Birds, Perches, and Mustard Seeds Amy Hosp 5-13-22

 

When I come across these photos of this beautiful American Robin that I photographed in Frisco back in 2018 or 2019 which was a very difficult season in my life, it always puts a smile on my face and reminds me how delicate life is. I see his little feet and legs balancing him on the fence and think about the fact that God takes care of the tiniest details in our life. And even though they’re tiny, and we don’t think about the tiny things as much as we do the big things, it’s those tiny things that make all the difference whether we survive, fall apart, or fall off our perch.

 

I hate to admit that there are more times than not that I feel like things in my life are out of control and that I’ll never be able to hold on to some sense of normalcy, and in today’s political world alone much less all of the other things we have to balance in life, I know that many people feel the same way that I do. Watching nature or spending time in nature and especially watching  birds, like this robin, remind me that God has created us, with the tiniest details in mind, which are the very foundation of what keeps us together. That foundation is that place inside of us that God put there for us to have faith in something and then he provided that something for us to have faith in. It only takes enough faith that is the size of a mustard seed to be able to believe in God and what He did for us and how much He is a God of love. That something that God provided for us to have faith in  is Jesus Christ, who left his father’s side in heaven and became a man and died on the cross and rose from the dead to cleanse us of our sins so that when we die and leave this earth we can spend an eternity in heaven with Him.

 

I have often wondered why it would only take enough faith the size of a mustard seed to believe in such a big God. A  mustard seed is so tiny, and I think about if I were to pour water inside of a mustard seed to fill it up it would be only a tiny drop of water, and that’s what it would take if our faith is like water to fill up that mustard seed, just a tiny drop of faith is all that we need to be able to trust in God or believe in God.

 

You see a mustard seed grows into a very big sturdy strong tree which is amazing because it’s seed is so tiny. This is what happens to your faith when you believe in God, it starts out as a tiny little seed of faith but the more that you water it and tend to it, by fellowshipping with God and reading your Bible, the more your faith grows into a very strong sturdy faith in God.

 

With the images of tiny mustard seeds and big mustard seed trees in mind, now I hope you can understand that when I look at these pictures of this robin and the delicate details that hold him up and on his perch how it is that I have a sense of peace and comfort knowing that when I’m feeling overwhelmed that I can call on God and thank Him for my salvation and thank Him for His creation. So I encourage you first of all if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ as your personal savior, send me a message and I would be happy to talk to you about that or you can contact a local pastor, and also go out into nature, which really can just be your own backyard, and look around you and see what you can find that reminds you that God really has created the tiniest details to help us find peace and comfort in our crazy world and to keep us from falling off of our perch.

 

Did you know that a mustard seeds tree is meant to grow big enough for birds to be able to nest and perch in its branches? It’s one more reminder of why I find comfort and peace when I watch God’s creation around me.

 

Matthew 13:31-32 NIV “He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.””

An American Looks Back at 9/11 by Amy Hosp

 

The Back Story to
An American Looks Back at 9/11

Written by Amy Hosp

The day was 9/10/2001 and I had just arrived in New York City. The flight from Dallas took longer than usual due to some setbacks at the surrounding airports. It was a dicey ordeal as our pilot said that we are 30 minutes away from being able to land with only 15 minutes worth of fuel left. It was scary for sure but I knew that I could pray and ask God to give me peace. 

I closed my eyes and asked God to give me peace and I saw a fire that was burning in a circle and a few second after I said God, please show me what this means, I will see a fire, there is a fire, I will tell people about the fire of hell? The pilot came back on the overhead speaker and said, “We can’t land at the airport because there is a fire at the airport so we will circle the city until we are cleared to land at the other airport in the city.” 

God had my attention at that point and boy did I ever need that peace that I was asking for. Not knowing then, but I believe now that was part of the plan for 9/11 to see how things would go when planes were not going to be able to land as scheduled. 

As I arrived later that day to the home where I was going to be living on Staten Island I became aware that my mission in New York City while preparing to go to Nigeria in just a few weeks, was going to be full of surprises because of what I could never imagined would have happened to America.

In July, earlier that year I had visited NYC to see where I would be living and to meet the church family that I would be working with. It was a busy time and so the opportunity to tour the World Trade Center just didn’t happen but I knew I would be returning to NYC soon so I left that sightseeing for then. 

Fast forward to 9/11 just two months later and I find my first morning in NYC an exciting one at the prospect of going to see the World Trade Center first thing in the morning because I knew I would be busy working with the church and preparing to go to Nigeria.

I had learned how to use the bus and subway system back in July and so I was up early and ready to catch the bus to go to the harbor and get on the fairy and ride across the Hudson River to take my tour of the World Trad Center. 

That morning I was excited also to go and meet up with a few people that I had met at the Staten Island McDonalds in July. These people went there every morning for breakfast and when I told them I was coming back in a few months they told me that would be right there and sure enough, they were. 

It was fun visiting with them but when it came time to catch the bus to the fairy one gentleman had gotten out to the bus before me and I was coming around the back of the bus when he stuck his head out the door and yell, “Hey, we just hear on the radio that a plane just flew into the side of one of the World Trade Center buildings.” I responded with shock and the thought of I guess I’m changing my plans for the day. 

Once I got on the bus he told me that I would be able to go tomorrow because it’s not that unusual for a crop duster to hit the tall buildings in NYC. To me it didn’t seem like that would be a one day delay type of event but he was the New Yorker who knew things.

Well, of course we know that it was way more than a crop duster plane. Instead of going into the city I stopped a few blocks up the road and got off the bus and walked a few blocks to the pastor’s home of whom I was working for. I told them what I had been told and so they quickly tried to find the news on TV. 

There was no local news at the time because all of the TV stations for the area had their antennas on the top of the World Trade Center buildings. We were unable to find any news other than on a Spanish station and no one in the house spoke Spanish but we didn’t need to hear the words, we could see what was happing from the pictures.

It was an awful time to be in NYC. That evening as I tried to find my way back to the home where I was staying I found myself walking the whole way. Along my path I ran into hundreds of people who had walked across the big bridges from the city into Staten Island, much much farther than I had walked or had to go. 

They all had expressions of being distraught, exhausted, and they were all covered from head to toe in ash from the buildings having fallen. They looked like walking full bodied ghosts. Everyone of them that I spoke to asked if I knew how they could get home. I was obviously helpless in the matter only telling them I will be praying for them. 

As the days went on and the streets and stores were beginning to open up after they were closed while authorities were chasing down reports of terrorists in various places it became apparent that the innocence of America had reached a new level of disbelief that this could happen to us.

A week had passed of which I had spent every day going into the city to see how I could help or just pray for people. The pastor that I was working with would ask me to meet him at certain places and to have a “pop up” prayer service. We ministered to lots of people on the streets during that time, I sang and he presented the Gospel and we prayed. 

The very hardest part for me, that honestly changed me somehow, and I’m not even sure if I could explain how it changed me, good or bad, I don’t think so but it just changed me somehow, was seeing the family and friends of those who had loved ones that were at work in the WTC buildings on the 11th. They all stood on the street corners of every street in the city holding signs and taping signs to light posts and windows and anywhere they could of pictures of their loved ones. All of the pictures had the persons name and birthdate, address, and what office in the towers that they worked in and they all said last seen on 9/11. 

By this time there was nothing left of the buildings and we all knew that those who had not returned home at this point had died trapped in the buildings. These sign holders would grab you by your clothes and arms and shove those posters in your face begging through tears asking if you had seen that person. 

Their desperation was astoundingly devastating because you knew that there was nothing on earth that you could do to help them find their loved one or convince them that they were not alive. You didn’t want to convince them of that and I guess we all had hope that maybe there would be a soap opera ending where the person would be found in a hospital and just had amnesia and couldn’t remember how to get home or what their phone number was or their name. 

 It was the most pitiful, helpless feeling that I had experience in life and as a missionary my heart bled for them because I was not able to speak out at that time about the hope that we have and could all have in Christ. These people were just unable to take in any information except that which they sought at that moment which no one had.

Daily, all day long, up to 20 to 30 each day, there were funeral processions for the firemen that were lost. All the regalia and circumstance was beautiful and ugly all at the same time with a hovering sadness and shock and anger that followed the line of people walking to the services for these heroes.  

Daily as I rode back and forth from Staten Island into the city on the fairy, past Lady Liberty I saw  firemen covered in ash and those barely looking rested enough to even be walking stood facing where the mighty towers had once stood, in a trance of what was most likely not just disbelief but dissociation of what they were living through. 

I reached out as much as I was able to and I would tell these men and women thank you and that I was praying for them and that God loved them and offer them a bottle of water as I tried to carry a few for just that purpose and almost everyone of them reached out to hug me, and kiss me on the cheek, ashes and all. The people in NYC felt very lonely and disconnected and just needed to know that others saw them and were praying for them.

I don’t want to ever have to go through something like that again. Yes, there were many stories of people who were headed into the office at the World Trade Centers that day that were turned back by forgetting their keys, or a sick child kept them home or a car that wouldn’t start which delayed them long enough that they didn’t arrive on time which saved their lives. Those are the kind of stories we need to hang on to. 

What I noticed the most of all was the hurting and wondering that people were going through. Without hope in Christ hard times are difficult to get through, even when you have hope in Christ hard times are hard times. On this level of the 9/11 devastation, it was and it is a time of reckoning with ourselves of what would happen to us if we were to die. 

These thoughts led me to come to a reckoning within my self and I found myself wanting to know why I had been disobedient to the simple command of ‘go out and make disciples’, which also means just sharing The Good News of Salvation through Christ with people. I found myself thinking back to every time when I was in Fort Worth Texas putting gas in my car and I felt led to speak to the person also getting gas next to me about Christ that I didn’t speak to. 

I often shared with others and I didn’t lay out the whole gospel to them but I would simply ask them how their day was going, if they are from the area, and if they attend a church anywhere and if they said no or that they haven’t been in a long time then I would invite them to the church service where I attended. I had moved to Ft Worth to go to Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary to learn to be a missionary. It was the whole reason that I was in Ft Worth getting gas in the first place and it was in my life plan to tell people about Jesus but I didn’t always do that. For whatever reasons that we give ourselves not to share Jesus with others, I had those reason and most likely plenty more.

It was when I saw on the news during 9/11 that people were jumping from the towers to escapes the heat that I began to wonder if I had asked that one person at the gas station to come and visit my church and they came and got saved, would they had known someone who knew someone who was jumping from the towers? Did I miss an opportunity to change someone’s life? 

Well, I know that the chances of getting a message from the gas station to the Twin Towers was very far fetched but it didn’t matter, my goal was not the person who was in the Twin Towers, my goal was the person right in front of me no matter how they got in front of me. I had simply not done my job. 

Realizing this I took some time one day while I was waiting on the fairy to arrive at the Staten Island station which was right next to the minor league baseball field where I was sitting on a rock looking out at the Statue of Liberty wondering if she were a human person, what would she have seen and thought about that horrible day. I had many thoughts about 9/11 and the days following up to that point and I want to share what I wrote that day to inspire you to share this with others, or to rededicate your life to God or find out what it means to be saved and how to become saved.

At the end of October, I returned to Texas as travel to almost everywhere was cancelled but I did make it to Nigeria a few years later where I served as a Missionary.

An American Looks Back at 9/11

Written 9/17/2001 by Amy Hosp

As I sit on the shore side at the Minor League Baseball Stadium on Staten Island listening to the lapping waves of the Hudson River and trying not to sniff the faint fish odor, I look out across the water into the foggy haze at only an outline of the city. Without the World Trade Center buildings looming high above the concrete jungle, from this point of view the city seems dwarfed somehow, even more so today in the haze.

Lady Liberty is tiny from here, not that she’s all that big to begin with. What I notice about her is that her face in some small semblance of fate is turned so that only her peripheral view can see that remaining rubble of those destroying moments.

I think that it is fitting that she didn’t have to watch it happen and that only a glimpse of that day was caught by her.

That is how America one day will see it, as only a glimpse, like so many other history making events that have taken place in the course of our nation’s life.

We will not spend needless hours of watching and waiting, but we will see it only as a glimpse of our past. We will know that it happened but we must remain standing, like Lady Liberty, to say that life goes on and we stand up for great things!

The haze of this day is a reminder that the memory of 9-11-01 will, even though it is hard to imagine, one day be only a hazy memory.

Don’t get me wrong, this day for some will never weaver in brightness or rather I should say darkness especially if you were in the World Trade Centers or the Pentagon or one of the cites where these things took place.

For the vastness of the rest of us though we are all connected in that we were alive, American, and watching the news. We will realize that this to shall fade from our direct sight and focus.

In no way do I intend to down play this most horrible tragedy but in all ways I do intend to remind everyone that there is something bigger than all this, and that something is a someone. God!

God loves you and He loved and cared about each one of those lost lives from that day, and yes, even the men who carried out the horrible task.

I don’t want to discuss the issues of if this was God’s plan or the devil’s plan except that there are a few Scriptures that we can look at to see what part belonged to whom.

If you see this as an act of God to wake us up or if you see it as an act of the devil to destroy us, either way there is only one way to turn and that is up toward God.

A quote from the book Desiring God by John Piper helped me see clearly how I should view this event. The quote says, “How can God be happy and decree calamity?

(Still quoting Desiring God by John Piper) “Consider that he has the capacity to view the world through two lenses. Through the narrow one He is grieved and angered at sin and pain. Through the wide one He sees evil in relation to its eternal purposes.”

(Still quoting Desiring God by John Piper) “Reality is like a mosaic. The parts may be ugly in themselves, but the whole is beautiful.”

Also quoted Desiring God by John Piper, “If God reigns as sovereign over the world, then the evil of the world is not outside His design.”

Amos 3:6 “Does evil befall a city, unless the Lord has done it?” 

This may sound harsh and like it is an action from an unloving God but please, I encourage you to take some time and search the Scriptures to see that God’s plan will not cease no matter how painful it may be for us. In the end He always follows His plan.

Here are a few verses that I found that will help explain how God is in control of situations such as 9/11.

Lamentations 2:11 “My eyes fail from weeping, I am in torment within, my heart is poured out on the ground because my people are destroyed, 

because children and infants faint in the streets of the city.”

Lamentations 3:37-38 “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that 

both calamities and good things come.?”

Revelation 17:17 “For God has put it into their hearts to accomplish His purpose by agreeing to give the beast their power to rule, until God’s words are fulfilled.”

I know that this next statement of mine may be hard to take but it is true. The fact that thousands of those lost that day were just that, lost, unsaved and did not believe in Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.

If they were lost, they will spend an eternity in hell separated from the God.

I think about the pictures that I saw on the news where the people on the floors above where the airplane hit the towers were hanging out of the windows trying to escape the intense heat from the fire that the airplane fuel ignited and I wondered if those people were unsaved, lost, and were going to be entering into a fire much hotter of which they can never escape, that is the eternally burning fires of hell.

We can’t say that God was mean or unloving for taking them this way knowing so many would go to hell, but the fact of the matter is that none of us knows which day will be our last.

Friend, I urge you with all that is within me to ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart and ask Him to forgive you for your sins and to save you so that when you die you will spend eternity in heaven with Him.

We all need to be saved because we all have sinned, ever person who has lived past the age of understanding right from wrong has sinned.

The Bible says this about finding salvation in Jesus Christ:

Romans 3:23 “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

Our sin has separated us from God and when we die without asking for forgiveness, our sin will cause us to forever be separated from God, that separation from God is death and that death will cost us everything we have and we can never have enough money or do enough good or nice things to buy our way out of that death that separates us from God and heaven.

Hold on though because The Good News is that God has given us a free gift to take to be able to be connected to Him.

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

How and why did God give us this gift?

John 3:16 “ For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

God loved us from the beginning and He showed us His love by giving us His son. Even though Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins, three days later he rose from the dead and is now in heaven praying for you and waiting for you to receive Him as your personal savior and you do this by believing that He did die and that He did raise up from the grave.

Is there anywhere in the Bible that we can see if there is a situation that is like what we go through today? There is and we see it when Jesus was talking to Martha whose brother had died. She felt hopeless and sad, much like we do today when someone we know dies, often we think about where we will go when we die. Jesus wanted to tell Martha The Good News so he asked her this:

John 11:25-27 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. 

The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” “Yes, Lord,” 

she replied, “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.”

Why did God give His only Son to die for us so that we will have life? God did this because he loved us first before we even knew who He was.

Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

What right does this give you?

John 1:12 “Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.”

When you believe in the name of Jesus Christ and believe that He died to make the payment for your sins, then you become a child of God.

You see satan intends for us to be destroyed and he wants to do everything he can in our lives to keep you from knowing what it is to be a child of God, satan is like a thief that comes and steals from you, but God has a better plan.

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy, I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jesus is asking you now to let Him into your heart and allow Him to become the Lord of your life to save you from an eternity in hell.

Revelation 3:20 “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with me.”

If you want to become a child of God and to be saved by believing in the name of Jesus Christ then you can pray this prayer:

God, I ask you now to come into my life and forgive me of my sins. I repent from all of my past sins and I want to be saved. I believe in the name of Jesus Christ who died on a cross for me and is now raised from the dead and is in heaven with you. I too want to spend my life and eternity as your child. Thank you, God, for coming into my heart and saving me today. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!

Make the decision today to accept Christ and if you already know Jesus as your personal Savior than please tell those around you about Him.

If you prayed this pray today or if you prayed this type of pray in the past but you have not been living your life as a child of God, growing in the Word of God and becoming more like Christ everyday then I encourage you to call your local church and tell them that you have decided to ask Jesus to be your personal savior and that you want to learn how to live your new life in Jesus.

Looking to Him,

Amy Hosp

http://www.thetriumphalentryamystheory.com

Resting

 

Resting

By Amy Hosp 6-25-19

There’ so much to get done is always a statement that I make as so many of us do. Our goal is to get things done so that we can rest. In the so much to do area there is always so many things to work through to get things done. For me as of the time of writing this, the pain that I have in my side right now from who knows what, but it’s been there for a long time, is a reminder that there is always going to be something that I have to work through or around or because of. I wish for just a few seconds, not even minutes, but a few seconds that I could have a pain free body and an unattached brain that is not forever connected with my body. I know that would mean some kind of head injury or a break with reality somehow, not that I would complain, but things are what they are so I’m a bit stuck where I am so my best choice is to do the next right thing. Most of the time I am truly guessing at what that is. I find it eventually and even it’s an action of getting something done, or an action of resting, I do it. Oh, it might take me a while to get to it, but I do it.  The thought of resting as an action, is intriguing to me. Most people call resting being lazy. What’s wrong with resting. The Bible says that a man that doesn’t work doesn’t eat, but resting doesn’t mean not working, it means resting from work in the working sense of things. God rested on the 7^th day, not only because He was setting an example for us to rest, but He wanted to look at all He had created. He called everything He created good when He made it, but He took a day to rest, reflect and look over what He had made. God doesn’t need to encourage Himself, but He does get Glory for all He has done and is doing and will do. As a matter of fact, He tells us in Romans that His creation is such that it points people to Him. It says in Romans that no man has an excuse of knowing that there is a God. Creation, in my opinion, is such that one cannot look around themselves without wondering how things were made or came to be and that’s because of its beauty. This brings me back to resting by the way.  If you stay in the concrete jungle where everything is manmade and full of the life of business, then you aren’t going to stop and wonder how things were made. It’s more likely that you will take things for granted, maybe all of it for granted.  Granted taking leads us down a dark path of self-indulgence, isolation, and gluttony, either the traditional form of the word or in a newer way of it, given ourselves what we see and want rather than what we need. Granted taking’s dark path also finds a place for our withdrawal from God because in that business we often are too busy to attend a church, much less be a member of a church. Even being a member of a church can draw us away from God because church membership can cause a whole other level of busyness to life. It’s a good thing to serve God and work for Him, but without rest, that service is really a waste of our time. I say our time because in busy service we still can and do touch and positively impact other’s lives. It’s not in vain to be a busy anything, a mom, a dad, or a soccer coach, a schoolteacher, a Sunday school teacher, a youth worker, a city volunteer, and all the other things a community needs to make it a community, it’s in your personal life that resting keeps us from suffering.

When do we as believers in Christ take time to rest and reflect on our lives? If you already have a time that you do this, and I’m not talking about the trash talk that we often are so good at about ourselves, I’m talking about reflecting on what is good, what we need more or less of, what we have that is working and is not working, what we have loved or are loving and what we don’t love and need to get away from, then you are on a good path and one that has far more light than the granted taking path has. What if God never took that time to rest and reflect on what He had done? Would He have been too busy like we are and forget things He wanted and needed to do? Would He had taken on a role where He began to trash talk to Himself about what was left undone, or what He could have done better if only He were not too busy to focus on what was at hand to be done? If that was true, not only do I think the earth would have imploded a long time ago, but if it did last as long as until now, I think it would be a non-safe, dangerous, lousy place to live. I know my life turns out that way, a lousy place to live because I have not taken the time to check in on me. Whatever checking that is that needs to be checked on doesn’t get done because I don’t take the time to rest and reflect. I know most of us have at least one day, or a half of a day that we can spend doing next to nothing but binge watch TV and while that type of resting is ok, it doesn’t give us the reflecting part of resting.

Resting and reflecting go hand in hand if you are truly resting. Not trying to get caught up on your sleep, although a nap may be needed to get to the reflecting part, but it’s the kind of resting that isn’t always sitting down and doing nothing. Resting that involves reflecting is giving yourself permission to be just you. Being just you is not doing things only you can do for others, or because no one else can do as well as you, it’s being who you believe deep down inside of yourself who you believe you were created to be. Many of us are afraid of that place inside of us and many more of us have no clue what this even means or where to begin to find that person. I had a tough time with that at one point and to be completely honest sometimes I have to really search to remember who that person is inside of me. This being just you stuff is easy but at the same time it takes a while to get to the easy part of it. Just being you! Doesn’t it sound alluring and exciting and beautiful? Doesn’t it also sound like a lot of work and remembering and reflecting, sometimes on things that are painful and difficult and just annoying? I agree with all of that and much more, but I have learned that the more I am just being me the easier it becomes and the more and more I like it and how good it feels to look back at my progress of doing such a potentially arduous task. I see shocking things about myself along the way, both shocking things that I had no idea was needing work, such as an attitude or judgment, but shocking things like how much fun it can be to crawl through a bobbed wire fence, even getting poked by the bobbed wire or getting my clothes hung on the fence, to be able to reach a beautiful site that before I would have not even bothered to find. I’m also shocked at times what I risk on this journey of just being me, like trespassing or going against the “norm” of society or eating that stinky nasty fish or veggie that made me gag when I was a kid. If I just rest on the couch for the sake of sitting down and not using energy, I may reflect some, but it’s usually not even in a useful way. It’s when I do something active that resting becomes reflective for me. I’m disabled so being active at times for me is very difficult and during those times all I can do is sit on the couch and rest I try to do so with a favorite book, or with my journal in front of me. I don’t even always have the ability to write in a journal or draw or paint of whatever one can do creatively just sitting down so on those days I use my art or journals and look at them and read and take time to see where I’ve been and think about where I’m headed or hope to be headed and how or what I need to do to get to that place. For me, doing something that I enjoy with just me, no one else, opens me up to me. To the me inside that was created by God to do certain things. Resting and reflecting teaches me and reminds me of why I am here on earth, and it gives me a sense of direction and purpose and hope and a vision. With all of the things resting affords me I find that getting busy doing those things is resting to me because I’m no longer striving to find me, or to satisfy myself or others. Resting by being busy doing and being what God created me to be takes tons of pressure off of me. I can relax and enjoy what I’m doing and once I’ve done those things and accomplished things lost to myself, I just keep resting. Resting brings more resting and also reflecting.

This resting thing is a Biblical principle by the way. The Bible tells us to rest in the arms of God, to lean on Him for our understanding, to sit under His wings for safety, to renew ourselves in His Word, to fellowship with Him, to rest one day a week so we can focus on Him. All of those things puts us in an avenue where God can reach us without having to get our attention or stop us in our tracks to speak to us. Resting keeps us in touch with God on a daily basis it is in that relationship we find our reflection. The Bible tells us that the closer we are with God, meaning the more that we depend on Him the more clearly, we can see ourselves. At first when we look through the glass at ourselves it is a dark reflection that we see but the more we rest in God the more clearly that reflection of ourselves becomes. I’m not talking pie in the sky, poof, all your problems are gone kinda stuff here. Pie in the sky is a great example of that. Wouldn’t having pie in the sky be great? Just think about it for a second, pie in the sky, it would not only smell delicious and be satisfying to be able to just reach up and grab a piece of pie of any kind that you wanted, but it would be messy and sticky and some of the fruit pies would stain everything and think of the sugar rushes from eating too much pie. People running around acting all willy nilly like kids the day after Halloween from gorging on candy. This would get out of hand very quickly if we really did have pie in the sky answers and fixes to reflecting on ourselves. Sometimes it is easy but let’s be real, sometimes it’s going to be hard to look at ourselves. I know for myself I faced lots of regret and shame and many other hard to face emotions. It’s just part of the process though. The seeing ourselves more clearly part of looking through a glass is the part where there is sin in our lives. The more we see God and rest with Him and in Him the more of the sin in our lives begin to disappear. Yes, we have to turn from sin, which is an action by the way, but that turning is heartfelt and desired because sin separates us from God and once, we learn to rest and reflect and find that created being that He planned for us to be and want us to be the more we want that in our lives to. As long as I am not focusing on the created by God part of me the more easily I fall into sin which interrupts my fellowship with God which causes me to throw myself, even unaware to me, into the busyness of life, which for me is a sign that I am searching for me. It’s a balance of both worlds and I understand that. Of course, as I said earlier, we have to have business to make the world work, but we also need rest to make the world work.

I hope that you find some time to rest, and I hope that you have seen some reflections of yourself in my ponderings about rest. There is no set formula for resting. The importance of resting is doing how you need to do it and that might change from time to time, my own resting actions sure change. I know one thing for sure, resting is a gift! Be a gift giver to not only yourself but to the world around you and to God by remembering to rest in Him.

 

 

 

The Revival that Could and DID!

 The Revival that Could and DID!

My name is Amy Hosp and I want to share with you what I have seen God do in a little sleepy town of Dawson Springs Kentucky through the Evangelist Eddie Coe and his wife Worship leader Heather Coe.

On Saturday Oct 9, 2021, I was in the midst of a trip home back to Ft Worth TX. I had spent time in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and was at the time passing through Kentucky. I had seen so many beautiful sights and learned new history about my birth family and of course history about the states I had visited but more than anything I had learned that driving a long time during the day makes you very tired. The last time I did any type of trip like this I was a small child which meant that I did none of the driving so I had no idea how tired I would be at this point. I had been traveling for 2 weeks already and didn’t really have a plan. See, I stepped out in faith and in a van that I had bought just a few weeks prior to this for the sole purpose of doing missions out on the road and going wherever and whenever God told me to go. Up to this point I had seen some really beautiful things that I longed to see for ages such as the Smokey Mountains, and the color of trees in the fall, in Texas the color on the trees in fall seem to last a few days, or at least not long enough to get out to enjoy the sight of the changing leaves. I saw these things and they are beautiful and I had seen some historical things here and there and not always on purpose, but it was time I thought to head home. I wasn’t hearing from God any certain direction to take, all I knew is that I didn’t want to drive through Mississippi, it’s a super boring drive for me, and besides that I wanted to drive a way that I had never gone before. I had been to Alabama just a few weeks prior to that so I felt that I had covered that southern drive.

After deciding that I for sure was going to go a different route I settled my van toward the new direction and drove until I was past tired. I decided that I would find a place to stop and rest and maybe even spend the night and start out again the next day. Let me step out of my story for a minute and tell you an important fact to understand about this story that I’m telling you. For the past month or even more I had been wanting to attend a revival. I looked and looked around the town where I live to find a church that was having a revival. Bingo, I found one at First Baptist Azle TX. I was on my way to visit a friend and I saw in their parking lost a big tent and I knew it was a revival. So, I excitedly drove through the parking lot and right back out again without stopping promising myself I was stop by on Tuesday night, this was on Monday. Well, on Tuesday it rained and rained and rained right at the time that the service was to start so I didn’t go. After that I gave up on finding a revival in the area where I lived. Now, back to the story…

Being so tired I was very relieved have found a Marathon Gas station to be able to stop for a rest. I went inside to use the restroom and on a bulletin board that was on the wall leading into the restroom I saw a flyer advertising a nightly revival with Evangelists Eddie and Heather Coe at Dawson Springs Revival Center. I knew that was a God and that He had set up my day for me. My new plan, rest and go to the revival that night and continue toward home the next day. After that stop I found myself seeking out the address on the flyer and quickly found that there was no church looking anything at the address. Disappointed I decided to look around this small town, which I didn’t even know the name of yet, to see if any churches had anything showing there was a revival at their facility. I found nothing. At this point I was feeling very determined to find this revival, after all I had been wanting to go to one for a more that a month by now. Soon I found myself back at the gas station on the edge of town to take a picture of the flyer so I could use my resource skills to track down this revival. Searching for the Pastor Adam Berry and his wife Laura online turned up nothing. So, next I looked at the evangelist name on the flyer, Eddie and Heather Coe and I continued my sleuthing finding Eddie on Facebook and also his phone number. I called the number so excited knowing that I was about to hear a sweet kind voice that was going to direct me straight to the revival at 7 that evening.  I dialed the number and the voice on the other end simply said, “Who’s speaking?” He really was very kind and told me that there was a women’s conference right then at the church and they were serving lunch and that I if I went right now, I would be able to have free lunch. That sounded like a good deal to me so I found the church with his directions and it was the most incredible thing that had happened to me in a long time.

Not only was the conference very inspiring but the ladies there were so nice and loving and of course invited me back that evening. I met Heather there that afternoon and I felt a very strong connection right away, like I had known her for years and I found myself opening up to her in ways that I usually reserve until I feel I can trust the person.

During the conference I learned that the Coe’s had been in Dawson Springs Kentucky holding 50 days of revival and had just the previous week planted a new church right there where the conference was being held. I call this blog entry The Little Revival That Could and Did because God DID a big thing in this little place of Dawson Springs Kentucky and is stilling doing big things.

My story of how I decided to travel in a van and just go wherever I felt God leading me and why the Coe’s would go to a little sleepy place like Dawson Springs may raise the question of how you know that God is or isn’t telling you to do something. I’m not going to tell you all about that because I believe that God speaks to each of us according to our personalities. What I am going to tell you is that once you step out in faith and start doing what God has said, or what you think He has said, you will start to see confirmations along the way that you are on the right track. Finding that flyer for the revival was my first sign that I was on the right track. For the new Dawson Springs Revival Center, which is the name of this new church, and the Coe’s things started showing up from the beginning of the revival to show them that they were on the right track for going home in the direction I had chosen. I don’t know all that happened to show them the right track before I got there, I’ve just heard pieces of the story here and there but from the time that I showed up I saw so much happen in favor of this movement that the only way a person would miss that God is involved is if they were blind and even then God would have healed that blindness by the end of your first visit to this revival.

When I got to the church there were tables set up with tablecloths and cute center pieces and a big screen TV on the wall, a strip of carpet at the front of the church, a curtain that acted as a wall, a cute bathroom way in the back of the building where items were stored that were for sale at one time. I was told that this building had been a Dollar General store and had been provided for Dawson Springs Revival Center for $200.00 a month. Y’all a church only paying $200.00 a month are you kidding me? If that’s not God then what or who is that? It was a comfortable place to meet to worship the Lord and have a revival but I knew that there was more that God wanted to do for this church. That first night that I attended the revival the table and chairs had been left up because we were going to partake in the very awesome leftovers from the ladies luncheon. It was an anointed and productive time in service that evening and the Lord showed me that these surroundings were only the beginnings of what God was going to do in this body of believers. On the back wall of the church, written on the wall, it said seasonal clothing. I shared that I saw this church as it is now in seasonal clothes and that as the seasons for this body changes so will it’s appearance and how it looks not only on the inside, but on the outside as well. I told them to leave that writing on the wall to remind them that their seasonal clothes were going to look very different years from now and that will be a reminder as to how God brought them from minimal beginnings in such a big way. Little did I know that first night about what all had been provided to this church, free of charge, for them so that they are actually a year or two, or more into what most churches would have three to five years into starting from scratch. This is a big sign that this revival and this church is what God had told the Coe’s to start in Dawson Springs.

I joined this group of people in Kentucky with only 7 days left of this 50-day revival and the second week of being a new church. I felt God asking me to stay there and I believe it was mainly to watch and learn about the miracles that were taking place in Dawson Springs. Miracles concerning or happening to the people attending consisted of physical healing of hips and backs and knees and also healing of emotional and mental things. Eyes, ears, sinuses, and fingers also and I’m sure things we will not know that happened as well. I also attended a service of healing in a nearby Methodist church where Heather and Eddie ministered. Cheryl, a ministry companion that travels with the Coe’s told me about the power she had seen during these 50 days of revival. She is a beautiful servant of the Lord.

Other miracles that I saw and learned about were to do with the church building. Heather had been searching around the internet to find tables for the conference and she found a lady that was going to sell her the tables but as Heather shared what the tables were for this lady began to offer for free to the church from her inventory not only the tables now for free, but chairs and even a bus. A bus! She asked Heather is the church could use a bus and Heathers said “Yes, we can”. Within that one phone call God provided tables, chairs, wedding materials (church’s do have weddings in them you know), a bus to get people to church in and other things that I’m not even aware of and on top of all of those free items, the church secured free carpet and new curtains for the building. Not only was the carpet free but the labor to install it was free courtesy of ministry friends Chuck and Tammy Whitfield and their kids and nephew. God also provided paint and materials for a bathroom. The people of Dawson Springs Revival Center all pitched in and did the work that it took to get the doors open for the church to be productive.

Looking back at what I saw in one week of being at this revival and all of the might works that God has done in marriages, and healing in bodies and healing in emotional things and hearing incredible worship and hearing the very unique way that Eddie delivers the Word of God, (he reads the Word and then explains it but he does with with truth that cuts right to the core of the issue inside of you, no just tickling ears or political correctness with him). Eddie is a strong teacher of the Word and Heather is an anointed worship leader able to break open the paths that the enemy tries to block in hearts. I would say this movement of God is right on Track and they are heading in the direction of God, full steam ahead. 

Personally, I have learned so much from the teaching of the Word from Eddie and from the sweet and anointed worship from Heather and the kindness and the determination of the members of Dawson Springs Revival Center to keep going forward with God that it has changed my life. I have learned that the revival that I was looking for was inside of me this whole time and now I’m learning how I carry that revival with me everywhere I go. I’m also learning that I can be just who I am and I don’t have to confirm to the standard around me to fit in or to follow God. Where am I learning this from, from Eddie’s teaching and from Heather’s worshiping. The Coe’s are online through the day having prayer, teaching and worship to reach as many as possible for the Kingdom of God.  

If you want to learn the things that I’m learning and see the kind of miracles that I’m seeing and if you have ever dreamed of starting a church, I encourage you to find the Coe’s online and start watching and learning from them.

 

Find them at:

https://www.facebook.com/edward.coe.3

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHkS9g-fvMANNxiF4jQQLOg

https://www.heartsablazeministries.net/

 

 

Pictures from Dawson Springs Revival Center

 The Beginnings:

The Hard Work!

Stepping Out In Faith And Doing Church!

The New Carpet!

Dawson Springs KY was hit by the devastating tornados on 12- 11-21. As of today, 12-13-21 13 people have been reported deceased and about 100 people still unaccounted for. The town was basically destroyed. It's a small town of about 2,600 people. If you would like to make donations to help please contact the Pastor Adam Berry on his Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Gru29 to get an updated list of items to needed. This mighty work of God is blessing people through this difficult time. Please join them in brining the Gospel and Hope to Dawson Springs.