Author: Andrea

Over the past month, I have been running into people talking about times and seasons. It started as we did our annual “Spring ahead” with the clocks, but I sense something more significant than that is in the wind.

Yes, as I write this, I am looking out at the wind making the Palm trees dance and the leaves of the bushes clap their leaves together, both fierce and beautiful. To put this in perspective, we purposely moved to the part of town that has very little wind, so the fact that I am seeing this is abnormal.

For me, this is a physical embodiment of what I’ve been feeling – that God is about to do something that is out of the ordinary and now is the time to prepare for it, just like we closed our doors and windows to keep the dust from blowing through the house.

This past Sunday one of our group members brought a reading about time. He didn’t know that this topic has been on my heart and mind. I was struck by two different definitions of time: Chronos – marks the passage of time and Kairos – which signifies the proper or opportune time for action. My sense is we have moved into a Kairos time with God.

You may be asking, what does this mean? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m just aware of a shift and that I want to be ready to spring into whatever God is planning to do next. For me, that has resulted in a change in how I structure my day. I intentionally spend more and consistent time focusing on my relationship with God: reading the Bible, just sitting with Him enjoying His presence, having deeper more intimate conversations with Him, and experiencing a strong desire to invite people along with me on the journey.

Will you join me in walking into this Kairos time with God? Is there something you want or need to do to prepare yourself for the critical moment for action? Will you be ready?

By Andrea Sanger

One morning I woke up from a dream with a word on my mind. I felt it was a word that I shouldn’t forget, so, I leaped out of bed (totally abnormal for me). I grabbed my phone, pulled up my Dictionary.com app and typed in the word. There were no exact matches, but what did come up was Eudemonia – a noun that denotes happiness and well-being. Being a fanatical word person, I wanted synonyms for the word, so I jumped into Thesaurus.com: comfort, contentment, happiness, health, profit, prosperity, protection, safety, security, success, and welfare. What a great word, right?

Considering that in the past few months my family and friends have been racked with health and financial setbacks, it made me laugh. God has frequently done this in my life – dropped a word into my dreams that I don’t know that shows me something amazing about His plan and purpose for my life and those around me. His plan for us isn’t the stress we are embracing but “eudemonia.” The remainder of the week when something came up that could have been stressful, my dream word would pop into my head and make me smile.

When one of my friends shared the immense stress that she was carrying around, I realized that although eudemonia was a good word for me to know, it was a word from God for my friend. She is on track to fully express all the synonyms and have a huge impact on the community. However, she was internally blocked by a myriad of fears (some seem valid). Eudemonia became my prayer for her and all that she touches – a short one-word prayer that packs a big punch. Since that encounter more stressors have been dumped on her plate, but there is a new level of living well and doing well in the middle of it.

As I sit here typing, I pray God’s eudemonia would cover your life. Also that you, like me, will wake up in the mornings with a smile on your face, knowing that no matter what happens with the rest of your day in Christ, you are living well and doing well.

By: Andrea Sanger

I admit my mind was wandering during Bible Study, but what happened was purely a God moment.

As I looked down at the table, I saw a reflection of my friend’s arm and took a picture of it. It got me thinking about how each of us imposes a reflection on the world around us, even if we are not aware of it. Then, I started thinking about a Bible Study I did years ago – it was about taming the tongue from Proverbs 27:19 (English Standard Version – ESV): “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man.” It forced me to think about what my heart was reflecting through the words I choose to use. Often it is not great – that is why I love writing – I have time to edit before my thoughts become public. I’ve started challenging myself again to search my heart for what is really in there so that it is appropriately reflected through my words.

Back to the current Bible Study, we were studying Matthew 8:23-27 where Jesus calms the storm. Again, I was distracted as the reflection on my friend’s phone profoundly spoke to me. There she was reading “Jesus Calms the Storm” as a calm and serene outdoor sky reflected onto her screen. It was as if God was showing me that He is reflected in the world around us through His Word. We will see those reflections in it if our perspective is right. In this instance, God was also showing me that Jesus exhibited calm in his whole body by sleeping in the middle of the storm, even though the disciples couldn’t see it from their perspective.

How many times do I miss what God is trying to show me because I am out of position or just looking at what is right in front of me? How many times does my heart falter like the disciples because I’m focused on me instead of the reflection God is casting on and around me? How many times do I reflect onto the world something that is not helpful or uplifting? I want my body and words to reflect Christ’s influence in my life. How about you?

By Andrea Sanger

In the process of writing my memoir, I’m getting to go back and review old journals (I have several boxes of them). In one of them dated 11/7/1993 I wrote two entries as a follow-up to a conference we attended:

1. We are called to the Prodigals. The ones rejected by others. Adoption is just a part of that call. Our new son is just part of that call. I pray that I heard that directly from God, but it was like He said, “Your son is the first of many who have been rejected – that may be difficult at times, but the trouble is worth it. They need a place to be loved no matter what.
2. The Prodigals – confirmed when we went up to receive anointing for our call, Tommi (one of the conference speakers) handed David a paper. The paper was for the one who has a heart for the prodigals. (Someone had given her the paper earlier in the day with those instructions. They had written out Ezekiel 34 on it with words of encouragement).

As I look back on our lives, I can see all the places where this calling on our life has “accidentally” come to pass. Not because we went out looking for it, but it found us through the amazing people we have encountered along the way. There have been a lot of days when my husband and I have looked at each other and asked, “How’d we get here?” Then we’d smile, laugh and say, “Only God could do this!”

Even when we walked down the paths that seemed to conform to the normal, we would end up attracted to the fringes. So, is it any wonder that Live180 is a perfect fit for us as a ministry. We get to work with people who don’t fit into the normal Christian circles but have an intense hunger to know more about Jesus. It is utterly freeing to be right in the center of what God designed us to do. Some days are gut-wrenchingly hard, but even in those times, we have an intense peace and joy. I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone else’s at this point.

I know journaling isn’t for everyone, but if you are at all inclined to record what God is doing in your life, I encourage you to do it. You never know when God will use what you’ve recorded to clarify calling, give hope to others or just give you a smile when you need it.

It’s a Sunday morning in January, and God is about to do something different. How do I know? I look out over the Coachella Valley and instead of our normal bright and sunny environment, clouds hang low over the landscape. The mountains that normally define our boundaries are invisible.

It is a misty, wispy day – making it appear as if Your Spirit is hovering close to the ground, wanting, begging for us to snuggle down, so You can reveal a new way to look at the things around us.

In the distance, the definition of the palm trees that carpet the valley floor are like dark ghost trees…poking through the ground fog in black fluff balls, not anchored to the ground. As my eye travels to the land closer to my outlook, there is more and more clarity.

Live is lived in the grey zone. Life isn’t as black and white as we would like. Things are not clear all of the time.

As I wrote and watched the scene moving and shifting before me, our Bible Study group begins to talk about how we perceive “bad things” in life. Then a “transformation of thought” began to emerge. Things are not always how we perceive them. We see the dark things in our lives as disconnected from what God is doing in our lives. The Enemy tries to obscure reality, like the ground fog hides the palm trees. The only way to get clarity is to get up close and personal with God.

Then I felt God nudging me with this thought, “Through dark times I bring more life. I bring growth and even more life. The contrast gives you a new perspective; highlights something new. It catches your eye and tweaks your brain – giving Me a moment to break-in, to reveal a new thought, to deepen our relationship, and to grow confidence in your direction, or to hone your character for your next direction.”

As the clouds began to lift, the people in the room seem to settle into peaceful contentment, knowing that God is with us in every situation and circumstance. There was a recounting of situations that we had thought were bad which have turned into major blessings. The mountains began to take shape in the distance with a new set of boundaries for our lives, ones that have been reshaped by this morning of resting in God’s presence.

As I read portions of what I had been writing to the group, I realized I had just encountered one of my “why do I exist moments.” I am a watchman on the wall, who is also called to be a scribe; to write down what I see and feel, so that others might be encouraged and challenged by what God is doing.

How do you perceive God and His plans and purposes for your life? Are you up close and personal, seeing clarity, or are things obscured from your view? I encourage you to take time with Him today to get His perspective on what is going on with your life circumstances.

I am participating in an amazing writing critique group that is helping me to work through the process of writing my memoir. Through expert observations, it became obvious that I had lost the essence of the story I wanted to convey. I couldn’t figure out how to get the story back on track. Then one day, as I was sitting in my living room, I looked over at a painting I did during a Christian art prayer/therapy session (Art Sozo) in August.
The title of the painting is “My Fingerprints.” The painting was done in layers. The first layer was a depiction of a lie I was believing about God at that time: that the Holy Spirit wouldn’t help me write the memoir. I depicted this on the canvas as a bunch of little black lines, that looked like words on a page. It was stark and rather depressing.
As I continued to paint, layer upon layer, on this painting, I worked through some internal issues. I needed to forgive myself and forgive others who had helped me to buy into the lie I was living out. I was also reminded that my God is loving and cheerful, wanting the best for me.
By the time I got to the fourth layer, I began to see that there was a specific message for me in the painting that I would have never guessed at the beginning of the exercise: that God sees me as a person with a big heart. Though my heart is frayed from some tumultuous situations I’ve been in, I still have the capacity to give and receive love.
I thought at that point that I was done with the painting, but no. In the next stage I was directed to ask God if there was anything else He wanted us to know. I waited for inspiration… then felt compelled to stick my finger in the red paint and started putting red fingerprints all over the painting. When it was done, I felt that God had just shown me that His fingerprints were all over my heart. Even the situations in my life that I felt were horrific have turned into something beautiful, because He redefined them with the touch of His hand, bringing clarity and meaning.
So, what does this story about a painting have to do with my memoir and my critique group? The working title of my book had been “Mad At The Wrong Mom,” which set a tone of anger and bitterness that was turning off my readers. Since that is not really who I am or what I want my message to be, something had to shift. The painting reminded me that every situation I’ve been in has helped me to grow and become a person with insight and love through the touch of God’s hand. The lessons I’ve learned as a result of these experiences are what I want to share through a compelling story of putting one foot in front of the other and trusting God to make it all work out. Therefore, I am changing my working title to “My Fingerprints.” It will be the story of a heart that is battered through tough experiences, but can still touch others with hope and courage to press on.
When I ask God for something, I never know where exactly where the answer will come from, but I’ve gotten into the habit of looking around. You never know, the answer maybe sitting right in front of you the whole time – and you, like me, just need your lenses cleaned to see it. Are you looking around for your answers to prayer?