The Intentional Life

James 1:17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights who  does not change like shifting shadows. If you have followed this blog over the last couple months, you could probably sense that I was going through a rough patch .  Thankfully things have settled down a bit and I feel like I have been able to catch my breath over the last week or two.   I'm a person who likes to keep calendars and record events to look back on later.  As I flipped through the last several months on the calendar I noticed a pattern:  every time we were on duty (a 6-9 day stretch) there was some big change that was happening in our house.  Either a new resident was introduced into the house, a major blowup happened with a resident that brought everything to a standstill, or a resident left for one reason or another .  Just looking back made me tired all over again.  No wonder I felt weary and emotionally spent! I would like to not have t

Today it has been 4 years.  It one way it feels like this has been our way of life forever. It other ways it feels like we just started doing this. We have been living/working at Gateway Woods for 4 years. As this organization's motto states, we are in the business of turning lives around.  Helping change families for the better. This may be a bad PR move, but the truth is, in the 4 years we have worked here we have not changed a single person. Except maybe ourselves. Because, the truth is, we are not the ones who make others change. We just work at introducing these kids to the One who can help make that change. Oftentimes I forget this. We had a great reminder this past week when the houseparents on campus got together. God does not need us. There it is.  To some it may offend you ( what? I'm not needed? I thought I was important in this work of Christ!)   Others, you may be relieved ( whew! sounds good.  I'll just sit in my little wo