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All my posts are now being posted on my website. A new post is up today and new posts will be posted periodically. Check it out! www.denisehildreth.com

Haven't Gone Away

Hey my sweet friends,

Thank you for your kind notes. I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. We are in the process of redoing my website to turn it into a blog, and all of my attention has been focused on that. It will make it interactive just like this blog, and allow me to not have to maintain so many different sites. So, hopefully it will be up by next week and I will send out an e-mail as soon as we get it ready. So, if you aren't on my e-mail list, go to www.denisehildreth.com, shoot me a quick e-mail and click on "get updates from Denise". That will have you on my e-mail list. So, hang in there with me. Promise we will still have updates, blog postings and inspirational thoughts. Thank you for how gracious you've been to hang with me. Sure have enjoyed this journey!
Now, onto a new one!

Denise

The Pictures We Paint

Forgive my week off. I took a much needed getaway which will be a little piece in our story. So, thank you for letting me go a week without posting anything. Right before I left, my friend and counselor, Ken Edwards came to speak to our Bible Study. He talked that day about the pictures that we all have of what our life would be like. You know, who you're going to marry, what you're going to be. We've had these pictures since we were little.

My first picture included being married to Donny Osmond, (that didn't work out to well, although he has officially touched my right hand.) And it also included be a school teacher. (Okay teacher yes, school, not so much.) But through life we continue to try to fit life into our picture. If something is outside of our box, but we think it should be inside our box we'll do our best to cram it inside, relationships, careers, friendships...you name it. We'll stuff and cram and stuff and cram until we look like Monica in the early years of Friends.

But what if instead we opened up that box? What would happen? Dare I say, would God have room to actually get inside, begin to orchestrate our lives the way He sees fit. Begin to Author our story the way only He can do when given the freedom to be the amazing Artist that He is. I have to say I thought I had released my picture. I've released more in these past two years than I even thought I had to release! But I found myself, that even though I had let go of so much of my picture, I was creating a new picture. And once again, I was deciding what I thought should and shouldn't belong. And with Ken's words came the challenge to once again, undo the frame and give God the freedom, the ability to design my life the way He chooses too. I don't know what my future looks like. I never thought I'd be where I am today, so I'm sure past guessing where I'll be tomorrow. But my prayer is that everytime I begin to place the frame around my "What should be's." God will graciously remind me that my picture is so limiting. And if I desire anything, it is to place no limitations on a limitless God. Our pictures are nice, I'm sure. But God has amazing waiting!

(Me and Donny's nephew, Justin.)

A Little Bit of Change

I was transplanting some rose bushes this morning. Don't know if they'll be too happy about it, but time will tell. Change is never fun. In fact, there are times it can be downright frustrating. Like when you move and that first week in your new home you wake up in the middle of the night and head to the closet thinking it's the bathroom. Or when you change jobs, schools, neighborhoods, churches and you have to be relearned. Tell your story all over again and try to discern who can be a real friend.

But change can be liberating too. Just ask my two and a half year old Shih-tzu, Sophie. She just got a haircut. I mean a hair cut! Top knot gone and everything! I thought she might be traumatized. But when she came prancing herself back through my front door that day, she had a swagger in her walk like I haven't seen. When her tail wag, her entire but shook. And when she saw that carpet she rolled her body around log a pig in slop! She has not for one moment regretted her new do.

And being relearned isn't always a bad thing either. That means we have the opportunities to learn about others as well. Hear new stories. Make new friends. See what else is out there in that world that we've missed.

I know this is a season of change for so many. Just like spring has finally folded back the last curtain of winter, some of you are turning pages of your own life. But I encourage you today to have no fear! But a swagger in your walk. Roll around on the carpet if you want. And have a Coca-Cola with a new friend and hear their story. You just might find that change can be an opened door to an entire new world. And if you need encouragement just ask Sophie, she'll tell you. Anyone who has worn a pony tail for two and a half years and is finally set free will tell you that change is a good thing. A very good thing:)

Too read more of Denise's blogs log on to www.denisehildreth.blogspot.com

Closed Doors

I remember years ago when my dreams of being Miss America came crashing down. (All laughter must now cease...) A friend came over to the house one day as I was sitting in front of the television eating my weight in chocolate cake watching the pageant over and over on my VCR tape. (Yes, that's how old I am.) I kept saying, "I've watched this thing a hundred times and I still haven't won! My friend says, "Sometimes God closes and door and sometimes he bolts it shut."

Years later I still have to remind myself that God's closed doors are as much God's blessing as are His opened doors. Not that closed doors are near as much fun as open doors. We love open doors. We get to explore new things. We get to grow in new ways. We get to meet new people. Kind of like what I think going on the Amazing Race would be like! But I've already bored you with that adventure.

But can my heart acknowledge God, appreciate God, have faith in God, even when He closes the door. Had to face that today. Last Wednesday at our Bible Study I had asked all of our ladies to fast together today. And of course, what do I get, but a letter in the inbox of my e-mail that is another closed door. Once again, I had to stop, grab my breath and go to the one who closed the doors.

The question was simple. "Do you trust me even when I close doors?" I felt like Peter with my answer, "Lord, where else would I go."

I have nothing profound this week. (No laughing again...) Just a simple question to each of us. Will we trust God even with the closed doors. Because they are as much His love and mercy as those that He opens. I don't know about you, but I'm not real good with options anyway. So, as long as He opens the one that is His perfect one, then that is perfectly fine with me...

Telling Your Story

I teach a weekly Bible Study and we are studying the book of Esther. Esther seems to be the topic of the times. When I began writing the curriculum for our study over Thanksgiving, I had no idea that Beth Moore was going to have a new study come out of Esther as well. A couple weeks after Christmas, I got a letter from my friend Robert Sterns in Israel, who said he was working on a new book about Esther. Like I said, looks like we have something to learn from Esther.

As we go into our lesson tomorrow Esther is going to approach the king. It is her moment. I can kind of hear the over done beauty pageant version of "This is the Moment" playing on the palace muzak in the background. But something has been stirring in my heart since the Lord placed this study on my heart six months ago. That it is no accident that you and I are alive during this time. We were the ones, chosen before the foundations of the world, to live during this time. With all of its chaos, all of its technology, all of its self-absorption, and all of its desperate need.

And each one of us has a story. Twice before Mordecai has told Esther she can't tell her story. But at the end of Chapter four he makes it clear that this might be the very reason she has come to the kingdom, been chosen as queen. Basically, girl this is your moment and you better show up or your booty is toast. Don't think those palace walls are going to protect you when you're looking destiny in the face and refuse to follow through.

I love a good story. Just got finished reading three good books recently, only one of which has come out yet. It is my book pick for this month, A Hundred Years of Happiness. I love the power of a story. I also love to hear people's stories. Each week in our Bible Study we have a personal testimony. Been a while since you've heard one of those at church? But each week someone comes up after the study and tells how that person's testimony ministered to their hearts. Why? Because we've all got a story.

I started a single's blog called Flying Solo because of the process and story of my divorce. Each week I tell part of my story. We get letters all the time of people's whose lives have been touched because of the stories and personal testimonies that they read each month.

You have a story too you know. A story that someone needs to hear. It doesn't mean you have to get up behind the pulpit Sunday morning and bare your soul, but someone might could stand to hear it over a cup of coffee, at a Thursday night dinner, or over the phone when they've had a really bad day. Your place of encouragement, your moment of crisis, your victory, your challenges, your story...someone needs to hear it.

Someone else could have done Esther's job. Mordecai made that really clear. "Esther, you don't show up, trust me, someone else will be there to do the job." But God wanted to use Esther. He wants to use you and me too. We don't need a theological degree. We just need time and a willing heart...because everyone has a story. Whether you've written a book or not, God has written one with your life. And someone needs, no, is desperate to read it.

Do Miracles Still Happen?

I was studying yesterday, working on my Bible Study lesson for Wednesday, when I came across an article. The writer said, "We know miracles no longer happen." Made me stop. I thought, well you never met my friend Roy who was completely healed of cancer. Or my girlfriend who was healed of the HPV virus. Or my dad who was completely healed of Sugar Diabetes. Or my older brother who was healed of epilepsy. Didn't find it strange that he had never seen miracles, because he didn't believe they were possible.

Kind of reminded me of Proverbs 18:21 that says, "Death and life [are] in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." I was teaching on this passage of scripture a couple weeks ago. Remembering that what I speak holds in itself the power of life and death. And the fruit of it will be what comes to fruition in my own life. A year ago I was doing Beth Moore's study on Daniel. She was talking about the difficult situations of life, the moments when we need a miracle. And she said, "Sometimes we can be delivered from the fire. Sometimes we can be delivered through the fire. Sometimes we can be delivered by the fire." But that she always prayed with all of her heart to be delivered from the fire. My kind of girl!

There are many people who never find healing. Cancer takes them. Heart Attacks snuff out their lives. And death happens. It is a part of this cycle of life. And I'm not here to debate the "why some do and why some don't." I'm just here to remind us that miracles still happen.

But greater than the healing of our bodies to me is the healing of our soul. I believe miracles still happen, because I don't believe there is any greater miracle than a heart that believes they can be made whole. When someone comes to believe that Jesus Christ can redeem them, there is no greater miracle.

I prayed for years for my home to be restored. For my marriage to be all that I knew it could be. But I never saw that miracle happen. But I still believe marriages can be healed. I still speak to couples on the ability God has to heal and to restore. Romans 8 tells us that "the same power that raised Christ from the dead dwells inside of me." Could I have quit believing there was hope for broken marriages when mine didn't make it? Absolutely. Could you believe that cancer can't be healed when your mother or father, or spouse or friend died from it? Of course you could. But does it lesson God's healing power? Absolutely not.

We will go to our grave never understanding much of life. But our ability to understand, in no way limits God's ability to move. He is still Healer, Deliverer, Savior, Father and Friend. The healing of our physical man requires both our faith and a trust in God's perfect will. But trust me, if I needed physical healing, I'd have one prayer, "Deliver me From!"

But God is just as present to heal the broken places of our marriages, the broken places of our past, whether it was abuse, trauma, neglect, control, and He is present to heal the broken places of our soul today. Miracles still happen. I see them everyday, in marriages that didn't look like they would make it, but two hearts that were willing to do anything to try. I see miracles ever day in lives who still believe change is possible. And I see miracles every day when someone realizes that there is no place so broken, so undone, so desperate, that Jesus won't reach down and heal, restore, mend and redeem. It doesn't matter the lies propagated by the "Accuser of the Brethren." What matters is who you and I are willing to believe. A life is only as redeemable as the truth it is willing to claim. And only as broken as the lie it is willing to believe.

I never tire of seeing a miracle. And I'm always praying for one somewhere and for someone. And I'm always grateful when a heart believes a miracle is available for them.

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