The Sparrow

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" Matthew 6:26

I have been living this amazing "George Mueller" kind of life lately. (Go ahead..do a google search..he's one of my heroes of the faith). I'm gonna put it out there, I think it is because I have finally come to the place where I am believing God for who He is and what His Word says. Don't get me wrong, I've always believed the Word of God is true, but lets face it, you know what you really believe when you act like you believe it. How often to we say things like, "The Bible says...", "I know the truth is this...", but then at that very same time we worry about our finances, we rack up debt, we continue in our slump...perhaps we are not really believing God. As always, it boils down to trust for me. I found that I could totally trust Him for some areas of my life, but then there are others that I act like I'm just not sure. I would never consciously say that of course, but my actions would.

If I were to mention the miracles one by one that have occurred in my home...the hand of the Almighty God found at my address, time and time again, my fingers would hurt from typing so much! I feel like I'm living in the New Testament. Only the Lord would know the silent prayers my husband and I have prayed for our various, and often times numerous, situations. So when the very next day the Lord sends two or three people to us with very specific answers to our silent prayers...it blows me out of the water. It has happened so much lately that I have just come to expect the Lord to meet our every need "according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." Please note I said need, not want, dream or desire...NEED. I am so eternally grateful for that!

Believe me when I say that I'm not just talking monetary, physical, and emotional, I'm talking all of those plus spiritual as well. His truth resonates in my heart...so that at times that is all I hear. I am in love with His Word. It totally sustains me! So, please if you know me and you see that I'm struggling (because lets face it, we will continue to struggle this side of Heaven)...please, just remind me of the Word. I have recently heard someone say that people often say when you are in the center of God's will you are sure to be safe. However, when you are in the center of God's will the enemy is not happy and you are more vulnerable for attack. (Living that like crazy lately) The difference is, God will still have His way. God cannot be defeated by the already defeated enemy of our souls. Amen?

So, as I close my first blog in many many months...take a look at that picture. That is my boy and the baby bird we found hopping along our driveway. He barely had his flying wings. My Kyle, lover of all nature, has a precious heart for God's creation. Prayed for his friend, Baby Peeps, that God would protect him, help him find his Mommy & Daddy, and make sure no stray cats ate him. After we prayed I spoke that verse to Kyle. His eye is on the sparrow (even though that is technically a baby blue jay)...

Popular hymn penned by C. Martin here is a little history of the song:

Civilla Martin, who wrote the lyrics, said this about her inspiration to write the song based in the scriptures outlined above,
Early in the spring of 1905, my husband and I were sojourning in Elmira, New York. We contracted a deep friendship for a couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Doolittle—true saints of God. Mrs. Doolittle had been bedridden for nigh twenty years. Her husband was an incurable cripple who had to propel himself to and from his business in a wheel chair. Despite their afflictions, they lived happy Christian lives, bringing inspiration and comfort to all who knew them. One day while we were visiting with the Doolittles, my husband commented on their bright hopefulness and asked them for the secret of it. Mrs. Doolittle's reply was simple: "His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me." The beauty of this simple expression of boundless faith gripped the hearts and fired the imagination of Dr. Martin and me. The hymn "His Eye Is on the Sparrow" was the outcome of that experience.
—Civilla Martin


Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come,
Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home,
When Jesus is my portion? My constant Friend is He:
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free,
For His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

“Let not your heart be troubled,” His tender word I hear,
And resting on His goodness, I lose my doubts and fears;
Though by the path He leadeth, but one step I may see;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

Whenever I am tempted, whenever clouds arise,
When songs give place to sighing, when hope within me dies,
I draw the closer to Him, from care He sets me free;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me;
His eye is on the sparrow, and I know He watches me.

You can listen to it here.

Life, An Education--Part IV

My favorite part of our trip!

We really had no idea how much we would fall in love with this day!

If you take a close look at this map you can see where we were....and you can see why we made the decision that afternoon to do what I will share in our next blog...

Before we began our hike...we took a picture of I'm hoping it's a panther. The problem with waiting almost 3 months to blog about a trip is that you forget so much! Well, my 41 year old mind does!

This is Michael's favorite thing to do in the whole world...bird watch and hike! When I fell in love with him in NJ, I fell in love with those very same things!

Anhinga - otherwise known as a piano bird...can you tell why?

The first trail we hiked was called Anhinga Trail...there were hundreds of Anhingas and another animal that begins with an "A"!

OH...misplaced picture...oops...moving these pictures around Blogger is a pain...here we are on the first leg of our hike..notice something here...each of us are have binoculars hanging on our necks and our Everglades Journal in our hands.

Here is the other "A" animal. Tons and tons of alligators. I really wanted to see wild alligators. I know we can see them in our own back yards, but I haven't yet, so this was one of my favorite sightings.

But as you can see from the picture below...we totally got our fill of alligators. I mean they were everywhere!

This really was breath taking. I took about 15 pictures of alligators. I just love them! They fascinate me.

I love that my husband and boys really bonded during this trip. (Not that they weren't bonded before.) I homeschool them, so they get their fill of Mom, this was uninterrupted time with Dad and it was awesome. Kyle in the above picture has always loved nature. He loves animals and he can totally see things we don't see all the time (attention to detail)! He knows how to use his binocs and spot the birds, just like his Dad. I loved this moment!

Here we are on another trail (I forgot the name of it)! This was awesome...we were in the dirt..I desperately wanted to see an alligator come up on our path (well, kind of..I mean I didn't want it to eat my children or anything, but....I know...I think I've seen too much Man Vs. Wild on Discovery Channel.

We read about trees indigenous to South Florida and saw watering holes for animals. It was very educational!

I was smart when I took this picture because I knew I wouldn't remember the name of this tree...so I told Brendan to strangle himself...this is a strangler tree! Look at the way it grew up and around itself. Fascinating.

So I had tons of pictures, but these gave a few highlights of this part of our trip. The above picture was perplexing to us. Being bird lovers we were a little disturbed by this. This was an actual turkey vulture hanging from a tree. We thought perhaps it got tangled in some wire or something, but then as we walked around we saw several of them hanging. They were purposefully hung there (after they had been found dead) to deter other turkey vultures from hanging around. They have such a problem with the vultures in the Everglades, they are so numerous and they apparently are attracted to the black molding in cars. There have been several incidents of car damage do to the vultures. So they are hung as a warning to the other vultures of potential danger. Interesting huh??

Next step of our vacation is the last step...The Florida Keys.

Life, An Education--Part III

That would be my boy Kyle at a shop in South Beach! We had so much fun just walking around and looking in all of the over priced shops. Yes, I did get a South Beach T-shirt.
The Art Deco section of town was really amazingly beautiful. My husband must have taken 30 pictures of various buildings (yawn)...make no mistake, they were beautiful, but I like people pictures.

Like this one...

This was new to us...falling coconuts...right out of the tree. Very cool! (it doesn't take much to thrill us!)

Ahhhh...Miami beach. Now, we live 5 minutes from the beach so this shouldn't be a big deal, but again, I want to state that the water in Miami was just....so many shades of glorious blue!

There were some disturbing sights...the cross dresser was right in the middle of the sign...it was a tough decision...I just had to get a picture of the sign! So colorful--Miami!

Here was where we parked on the street. Of course...

this is where we waited for Daddy while he walked down the street to get some....

Starbucks. I know...we are so bad!

Tomorrow....The Everglades!

Life, An Education...Part II

I know, I'm finally continuing with this story. From way back HERE! Actually, I think this is far more therapeutic. Three months later, I'm reliving the moments of my getaway! It was really glorious.

I want to say the Engels are outdoors people. We are, but we are not at the same time. We do have the most fun when we do spontaneous exploring in nature (however, my husband is convinced that I would never survive a camping trip...so he swears he will NEVER take me on one...sad right?). My son Kyle wants to be a zoo keeper, so any trip to the zoo is a wonderful experience. However, I think our time in the Everglades (blog to come) probably wins as the most amazing moments on our trip to south Florida! I digress...Miami Metro Zoo was really beautiful!

This being only our first full day in Miami (after arriving the night before)...we were really tired.

They were NOT!

We saw some amazingly beautiful birds and animals. It was breath taking!

Seriously, take a look at those paws. We really want a tiger!

I have to say, this was a lot of fun! Even I rode on the camel!

We left the zoo and hit the beach! See tomorrow!

Seriously?

I hope I didn't post a blog with that title yet! OH I used to be so good at this. Writing is what relieves my stress, organizes my thoughts and of course helps me to lay out my stones (book I'm writing). I went to my blog today and saw that the last date was April 6....so ashamed. I wrote on pruning. Oddly enough, tonight the breeze in blowing in my window and I can smell the sweet smell of jasmine from that very same bush that I pruned back in April. How wonderful to reap the benefits so soon.

I remember thinking that I was a conservative pruner and was asking God to not be conservative with me...I want to grow and blossom all I can for Him. I was encouraged to see the beauty of my jasmine even though I though I was conservative.

Well, the Lord has pruned me quite a bit this year, and it has been amazing. The journey, looking from the outside in, definitely could have appeared to be too overwhelming at times (who am I kidding..it looked like that from the inside out too). However, mingled in with all of this learning that I did this past year, was the amazing face of my Father in Heaven. Bagels & Blessings has come to an end for the next 3 months. We will begin again in September. We never had less than 72 women there and we had up to 108 one month. Women got saved, healed and set free. I continue to stand in awe of God. So thankful that the Lord set this vision in my heart and prepared the way and people to make it happen. I had a wonderful group of ladies to serve by my side and we all used our gifts and watched God do His thing, month after month.

I have to say that preparing to speak each month, while I know that it was what God called me to do, it was much like giving birth every month. I literally, in every way had to live what I was teaching. On this side of it, I am eternally grateful. While going through it, I was absolutely exhausted.

So, I am now enjoying an extended Sabbath. A period of rest. And it feels wonderful. I still have all the balls I'm trying to juggle, but one by one I letting go of some.

I do not want any encumbrances as I follow the call of God on my life. So, if somethings doesn't say Lisa Engel on it, I really shouldn't be picking it up. For now, I pray and see what God has for Lisa. I fully intend on picking up my pen (scratch that), getting out my keyboard and journaling the many adventures of this Superhero Mom (Mom to superheros...NOT a super Mom!---just reminding everyone!)

It's good to be back!

Pruning

As soon as someone says something like..."I am really a big fan of your blog" I am suddenly ridden with guilt because I haven't been keeping up lately. You see I had a wonderful vacation (still more to come on that) and then I got back and my world exploded.

So, I digress from the vacation blogging and talk about what God has been showing me. As I work so hard to get off the speeding train that I've been riding for the past three weeks, I found myself outside in my yard, inspired by God's beauty. Beauty inspires you know? It also speaks, nourishes, comforts, and draws you to God! (I'll be sharing about Beauty on Saturday at Bagels & Blessings). So, I was looking at my jasmine bushes the other day and realized that spring is here and it is time for some serious yard work. I darn my gloves & I begin the task of pruning my jasmine. I am not a big fan of pruning, only because I could prune so much that I feel like I would ruin the whole plant. So, I go the other way and I find that I am a conservative pruner (if indeed pruner is a real word). I'm not exactly sure of the ramifications of conservative pruning, but I do know the benefits of cutting back so the jasmine will grow even more beautifully and fuller the next time it blossoms. Wow, the word choice: cutting back! That speaks a whole other blog I think (hmmmm...see I just need to type and then all these blogs pop in my head).

So, as I stood and looked at my bush. I was a little timid to cut the branches. I snipped a little here and there, but I knew that if my husband was out there, he would have snipped that thing to nakedness.

That night, I found myself praying after pruning. Asking God, NOT to be conservative when it comes to pruning me. I long so desperately to please Him! I know that nakedness is painful sometimes, vulnerability is hard, pruning actually hurts, but the benefits far outweigh the momentary pain. I want to be all that God wants me to be. I don't want to get in my own way of growing in Christ. Prune me Lord, don't hold back! I want to blossom more beautifully, I want to be more like You Jesus! I want to make You smile!

Life Is An Education..

..So is vacation! Another perk of homeschooling, we can go on vacation WHENEVER! As stated in the blog below, this was our first family vacation in probably 5 years or so. Here are a few of our highlights. Today, I will take you on a tour of two of our highlights! The Hotel (my kids' favorite part of any getaway) and The Food!!

The Comfort Suites in Miami was very nice. It was clean and it had beds...that is all I cared about. My boys, however, were in Heaven. #1 We all slept together in one room! #2 We all went to sleep at the same time! #3 It had a hot tub! Nice!

This picture above was my humble attempt at setting my camera for automatic time delay! Really, here we are no long the Engels...we are the Bucketts. (You know, from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!)

It cracks me up that we go on vacation to get away from the normal routine of life. Then we get to our hotel and unpack our bags in dressers, set up the kitchen like at home, and bring as much stuff as we can to remind us of what we just left! Hmmm? What is wrong with us!? Here is Kyle with his Webkinz.


The Hotel was one of our children's highlights. The food was one of ours. We miss the international food of New Jersey/New York. Where we live in Florida, we can get good seafood, but the we miss all the different cultural experiences we had living in the melting pot of the North East. So while in Miami we knew we could probably find good authentic Spanish, Cuban or even El Salvadorian food. Boy, were we right!

Above is a picture of where we got some delicious take out. Of course, the language barrier was an issue. So somehow we ended up purchasing WAY TOO much food.

When we lived in New Jersey we lived in a two family house. Our neighbors downstairs went to our church, they were close friends. The wife was from El Salvador and the husband from Costa Rica. OH MY GOODNESS...the smells coming from downstairs was a little too much for this "pregnant-with-twins" Mom and so Ana began to cook for me! Pupusas (homemade) and all kids of amazing food.

Here are some of our delicious delicacies.

OK, so I had to throw this picture in here. My husband worked for Starbucks for 10 years or so. Hence, we became what some might call...coffee snobs. I don't know why people would say such a thing. We just love good quality, bold coffee! So we are so grateful that these places are everywhere...we could not handle the hotel's "dirty water" coffee! So we must have visited this particular place (or one's just like it)...ummm...10 times in the four days we were in Miami and the nearby area!


Except when we visited here. Because here we could get authentic Cafe con leche! Be still my heart! Again, another friend of ours from college, Hendor, originally from Cuba introduced us to cafe con leche years ago. We can make it on our own, but seldom do we ever do that!


Apparently this place is a chain, because we another one driving home from Miami!

This is Kyle (our most picky eater) eating a Yucca Stick! (It wasn't yucka...it was yummo!) We were so proud!

Churrasco Carretero with chimi-churri sauce, plantains and moros rice.

This is a very sleepy me on our first night in Miami adding the cafe to my leche!

So this was the first highlight of our journey...stay tuned for the Miami Metro Zoo and South Beach!

Living For The Moment

I am going to write about our vacation in the next few posts. We haven't been on a family vacation in close to 6 years. So this was a big deal for us! We really, really needed this. I probably, more than anyone else really needed this. I have been feeling like I've been sinking, my mind is like a whirlwind or a cyclone and I haven't been able to sleep a full night's sleep in a couple of months. My husband and I care for his grandfather, who is 92 years old. I love him dearly and am so glad to be able to do this for this journey of his life. He has advanced dementia and it has begun to really take a toll on me. Pop has his nights and days confused, so when we are sound asleep at 2:00am...he comes into our room and wants to know the plan for the day. He wants to talk. We take him back to bed, but he is doing the same thing about an hour later. He has been eating 6 breakfasts a day because he is convinced that every time he wakes up from a nap, it is the morning of the next day. The days are full of questions, confusion and conspiracy. My heart breaks for him. This plus the daily concern of him burning down the house because he places clothing and towels on his heater and the his personal hygiene factor plays a part in my exhaustion. (Not to mention all of those other "balls" I juggle...homeschooling 3 boys, one with a learning disability, starting a new ministry and speaking every month, regular duties of a wife, mother and friend.) I have been crying a lot lately. Both Mike and I felt like it was time to get away. After setting up "Pop Care" with some of my friends from church, we were off for 3 nights and 4 days away.

I learned something very valuable during my vacation. We left Friday morning and arrived in Miami by Friday afternoon. We had a nice afternoon getting a hold of where we were and just driving around. I actually slept 8 straight hours on Friday night. I haven't done that (not even close to that) in several months. Saturday arrives and we have a great day, but back at the hotel that night I laid in bed and cried. I just cried...like I have been doing too often! I was distraught. I had gotten a full night's sleep and yet I still felt like my world was crumbling. My husband just held me and prayed for me and I cried myself to sleep that night.

Another full night's rest! I woke up Sunday morning and felt pretty good. We went to the Everglades and then to the Florida Keys and I had the most wonderful, refreshing day I have had in such a long long time!

Here is what I learned:

I learned how important sleep really is for the body and the mind. I needed to catch up a little bit. One full night's of sleep is not going to catch me up after not sleeping but 3-4 hours a night for months.

I learned that we need to live in the moment every once in awhile.

Take in the beauty that God has given us!

I learned that sometimes, we need to stop talking about the future, the past, and just live in the moment. That Sunday we did just that. We didn't talk about Pop, the house, school, ministry...we just took in the sights and sounds of the day.

We held hands, used our binoculars (we love our binocs) went for walks and laughed. We haven't laughed like that in months. We ALL needed this getaway.

Yesterday it hit me when I was in the car with my three boys and we were coming home from soccer evaluations. We were laughing and my one son looks over at me and says..."Mom, you are so funny, that is not like you!" Wow! That was painful! But it is true. I let the pressures of this world take a part of me and change me. I don't want to do that again. I know we need to plan, organize and think of the future. I know I am responsible for our grandfather's well being. I know also, that I need a full nights sleep every so often and I need to spend time having fun with my family. I need to make some priority changes.

So stay tuned as I log our amazing vacation in South Florida!