Becoming Strong in the Broken Places

Hello friends!

I have been thinking lately about my journey to where I am today. I still have lots to learn, lots to change, in short, God is not done with me. BUT, there are a few lessons I have learned in my walk with the Lord.

In many occasions I found myself very close to God, but in others, unfurtunatly, I was far from God. The funny thing is that all during those trials, I was always serving God. People with whom I worked never noticed my spiritual status.

When you are a Christian for a while you learn to say the right words and do the right things before other people, no matter how you feel. But when you are alone in your room with closed doors, there is where your real "you" emerges.

I do not think God is waiting for those moments with us to make us feel terrible and demand a change. I believe he is hopeful for the right attitute in our hearts. He undestands our weakness and wants to make us strong. If we just could cross our pried and open up so He could work one of His miracles!

I write from my heart and to myself that some seasons in our life won't be easy. Even when you are in the center of God's will, doing His work, serving the people ... still, problems will arise. Then, what does God want from me?

I think he wants an attitude of surrender, trust and willingness to learn a new lesson. I am not there yet!! I still complain, get mad at Him, cry in desperation, etc. But He is patient and will wait until we calm down and surrender ourserves totally to His working hands in our lives.

I read this the other day and spoke to me personally. I would like to share with you:

"To become strong in the broken plances in our lives demands that we do two things, seeming opposites: hang in there, and let go. To somehow dig up the courage to keep going is the very courage that allows us to scoop up broken pieces of our lives and lay them all at the feet of the One who would do more in us than just get us through the storm. As James Means said, he would take the fire that blackens our horizons and warm our sould with it. He would sharpen our vision in the darkness that oppresses us. He would use the despair of standing at a grave to deepen our trust. This we cannot do for ourselves.
Perhaps because our brokenness brings us to the end of ourselves, it is here, in these jars of clay that we offer up to his very special grace, that God's all-surpassing power is make known and he, indeed, makes us strong in our broken places. "
By Verdell Davis
Riches Stored in Secret Places

I will leave these verses with you:

"My heart is steadfast, Oh God, my heart is steadfast, I will sing and give praise."Psalm 57:7

"And He said to me: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.'. Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
2 Corinthians 12:9

God bless you today! -- Mara

Finding Good in the Ordinary

Many times in the past, as we worked as a family to bring people closer to God, I felt overwhelmed.

I felt much was expected of me. I realized later that much of that expectation came from myself. I always had big plans to do this or that ... much came to be thanks to sleepless nights and stressfull family times.

One of the things that I used to find very annoying were the interruptions. I had plans and "these people" did not let me do them. They kept interrupting me. Didn't they realize I was trying to serve them? :)

I read the illustration below the other day, during my devotional. It illustrates it very well.

FINDING HOLINESS IN THE ORDINARY

Henry Nouwen, in his book Out of Solitude, tells of an old Notre Dame professor who had always complained that his work was constantly being interrupted. Like so many of us, he longed for the freedom to concentrate fully on what he considered important. Late in his life, however, the professor came to realize what he wished he had knwon all along:

the the interruptions were his work ...

The interruptions are the work. The pieces are the whole. We cannot wait for a total, personal revelation of all that God has for us to be handed down in one lump sum. God reveals Himself to us bit by spiritual bit. Even our broadest visions and our highest goals, once we know them, must be broken down and lived out in the small particulars of our everyday lives if they are to have meaning.

By Claire Cloninger

When God Sines Through

Boy, isn't this a good message? I felt liberated after reading this a few years ago and rereading it just the other day. God wants us and our time belongs to Him. It would be so much easier if we handled all to him every morning and let Him use it. I am speaking to myself here.

Work for Him is good but only under the guidance of His Holy Spirit we will know when to start, when to finish and when to welcome the interruptions as they might be the most important task of the day.

"In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, either this of that, or whether both alike will be good.

Eclesiates 11:6

A Broken Heart

Just lately, it seems that G. has brought many poeple on my way that have had very difficult situations in their lives.

We, as a family, are making an effort to get to know people in our circles of influence. For an extrovert, such as me, meeting people is fun! Getting to know their hobbies, what we have in commun, their backgrounds, etc ...

But not all is fun ... knowing people and actually showing you care means getting involved in their struggles, problems and many times to be heart broken over what they are going through!

I find myself experiencing this lately. One friend I met has breast cancer on her early 30's, one lost her husband on a contruction accident and the other on a traffic accident. Both are under 50!

I have been so sad knowing of their life struggles. I pray for oportunities to share about what matter to me the most but the HS will have to do His job first. They will have many questions about G. and how He relates to what is going on on their lives. It is a tough job but it is not my job, He has healed many and is ready to heal an open heart.

My p. is that one day, they will experience the freedom in C. I pray for you too, that is reading this blog post and is going through a similar circunstance. He will carry you through as you share their burden and love "them" into the Kingdom.

Scrapbooking

If you know me you know I am a scrapbooker. I just wish I had more time to devote to it, but you will hear it from any scrapbooker.

I started doing it to record the way Dwight and I met. It is such a cool love story that I wanted to keep all the detailes, including all the letters we exchanged, etc.

Then, with kids and family events, I saw it as a wonderful way to make those memories alive and even more beautiful.

It was with time that I realize what a wonderful tool it is in making friendships and sharing your faith and values with other ladies!

In Madrid, Spain, God brought a group of ladies to scrapbook together. I had many changes to share my faith, my biblical points of view on different aspects of life, and me!

Also, it becomes a support group. In this busy pace of life we all live, it is hard for anyone to find true friends, who know you, who cares about who you are and are interested in what you have to say.

I feel this kind of group offers this kind of support. Through their pictures, they share their most valued memories, they share who they are and we get to know each other really well.

We met once a week and in some of those morning, we never got to actually scrapbook. We shared so much over coffee that there was no time to work on the pictures! We had all kinds of circunstances. Some times it was just plain fun among girlsfriends. Other times it was not as light. We had one lady sharing family problems over tears. We had other one sharing about all the bitter memories she had when seing some of her baby/child pictures. And the list goes on ...

We also had two occasions in which a group came to do a workshop for them. There are many stablished churches there that have a scrapbook ministry and would love to come and help you with resources and their presence. Actually, many do not realize the impact they can have in a church start. Our experience shows that many, if not most churches start with ladies!

So, as you can see, I am an avid scrapbook lover!

Visit this article I wrote in my other blog about how I found out that "Scrapbooking is Biblical!" :

http://marasplace.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_marasplace_archive.html
Note you will have to scroll down on this page above to read the article!
Have a good week and get those pictures out of the shoe boxes!

Would you like to post here?

I would love to hear your stories. I know we all have many exciting or sad stories we have lived first hand in this labor of church planting.

You may have also a new truth from God's word and you cannot keep it to yourself - share with us.

Another option is to share what you have been doing that is giving you some good results - we are all life learners and always open to new strategies and tools - don't keep it to yourself!

I invite you to post those stories here. If you are already a "blogger" you will know what to do. If you are not, I can help you with the steps and how to become part of the group. If you do not want to go that rout, just send me your story and I will post it within a couple of days.

I reserve the right to edit some information that I do not think would be appropriate, but you will be informed of it.

Please make this a place to "hang out" during your down time, it will be an exciting venture.

Love, Mara

Other blogs to visit ...

Dear reader,

I would like to share with you about my blogs. I have friends all over the world and like to keep in touch. It all started as an update on my family, with time, blogging became my means to share my points of view, my values and my faith.

I recommend to any of you who desire to share your life with others. More and more people are leaning on internet to keep informed about things. So I see this as an oportunity for you to also use this means to make an impact.

I feel I can share openly about my faith without threatning anyone. The reader is the one in the control of how much they want to read. In the other hand, the HS works and I believe is working on this very same moment on lives all over the world. I just want to give my humble contribution to the ones who are interested in what is up with me.

I invite you to visit my other blogs. I vary from recipes, to new truth I am learning on God's Word to celebration of special dates. I guess they are just a picture of who I am. My other blogs are:

marasplace.blogspot.com -- English
elrincondemara.blogspot.com -- Spanish/Español
ocantinhodamara.blogspot.com -- Portuguese/Português

Another good thing is that you can also put a counter in your blog and you can know how many people visit your space. I am so happy to say that I had over 4000 visits to my blogs altogether during the last year.

If you want more information on this, please contact me at:
mwilliamsinpain@gmail.com .
I will be more than happy to give you more information or even help you to set it up.

I encourage you to try it out. It is fun and it is another way to speak up for what we believe - and DO WE HAVE A MESSAGE!

Who is Mara?

Updated on April, 2016

I am a happy wife and mother of three!

Dwight, my husband, and I met 26 years ago during a mission trip to Spain. He went to Spain all the way from Texas and I did it from Brazil, where I am from. After a long (and romantic) story we got married about a year later.

We lived in Texas for the first 3 years of our marriage. God gave us the blessing of seeing the birth of a multicultural church in that city. It was an exciting time of our life.

God, then, directed us to move to Spain to continue this labor. We arrived in Gijon, north coast of Spain, in the Summer of 1993. It was overwhelming to see the crowds of people without the Lord. God was faithful once more bringing people on our way through different circumstances. God was good to us, allowing us to be part of the birth of another church that started in our home.

Our two daughters, Sarah and Amanda, were also born in that city in 1996 and 1997.

Dwight was invited to assume a different responsibility and we moved to the capital of the country, Madrid, in 1999. Once more, we hurt as we left a "family" behind us, but they were not alone ...

We lived in Madrid from 2000 to 2005. During this season, we had our time to dedicate to CP a bit limited but we still saw a small BS group emerge. It was a joy to be able to share our faith with friends in our home. As always, our prayer was that our home would be a lighthouse.

During our time in Madrid we had Christopher added to our family in October of 2000.

In 2005 God directed us to a change. We found ourselves in Miami! A beautiful place where my husband worked mentoring and encouraging CP around the metropolitan area. It was a job he loved to do and God used him in a great way. I had the opportunity to be "out there" substitute teaching and meeting new people.

In 2007 we found ourselves back to Madrid, Spain.  It was back in the suburbs of Madrid called Alcobendas.  We saw the birth of a house church.  Due to some educational needs we moved to another suburb city called Alcala de Henares in 2012.  Our girls have graduated and are not living in USA.

We still live in Alcalá at the moment, 2016, and our youngest Christopher is our only child at home.  For this school year we are hosting two teenager TCK boys.  So our house is still full for the time being!

Regarding ministry we are doing church planting.  At the moment we have two attempts of small group start, still in the forming phase.  I personally have a ministry with ladies through craft classes and a blog for women.  We see dozens of people weekly sharing Christ verbally and through our services in our community storefront and in other ways.  We attend an amazing church and most of our partners in ministry come from there.

We are thankful to God for the rich life he has given us so far and we look forward to what it is to come!  God always surprises us and we want to find ourselves ready at any point when God sends the winds of His Holy Spirit and we start sailing vigorously seeing many people come to Christ in our beloved Spain!

Pics of Mara & Family

My family in front of the Kendall Brazilian Church in Miami

Easter Sunday, Kids at the Brazilian church we attend in Miami

Some of the church of Gijon, PicNic May 2005

Other special friends from Madrid

Our kids and some of their friends from Madrid

Farwell party with friends in Madrid

Mara and her friends from Madrid, scrapbooking workshop

Girls with little friend, from Gijón, Spain

Christopher and I at a sight seing place in Gijon, Asturias

Dwight in front of the "Museo del Prado" in Madrid

Kids in the typical Madrid outfit!

Welcome to Priscilla's Place

No, my name is not Priscilla!

Well, let me explain ...

Many years ago when we first arrived in Spain, I received an invitation from the local believers to present a study to church planters! Yes, me! Needless to say I was very honored but ... scared. I started looking for a woman in the Bible who could be the theme for my short "message".

I came across Priscilla and the more I studied about her, the more I admired this woman. She is only mentioned 4 times in the New Testament, but these short mentions say a lot about her. She has become my historical mentor in many ways. Many times during these last 13 years doing church planting, I thought of her and her sacrificial work of love.

There are many things I love about her:

- She was a real friend to Paul
- She was hospitable - the church met in her house
- She is always mentioned with her husband - they were a team!
- She was mentioned, in one of the times, first than her husband - she was equally involved in the effort to spread the Gospel.

So this space is dedicated to Priscilla! I hope it also becomes a place for all the other "Priscillas" spread around the world, sharing the Good News and serving God with the best of themselves: this is church planting!

Make this your place and share articles of your experience in this labor of love!