Our Response

Friends of Faith:

“Jesus had revealed himself to his disciples and, when they had finished breakfast, said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He then said to Simon Peter a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?”Simon Peter answered him, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was distressed that he had said to him a third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” Jn 21: 15-19

Symbolically, Jesus asked Simon Peter for a response three times. And three times Simon Peter said, “yes,” “I love you,” and “I will serve you.”

We too are asked by God for that same response daily: a request and a response to love, to serve, and to pray unceasingly.

We spent a refreshing and joyous weekend in church attending the ordination of three new priests for the Archdiocese of Dubuque and attending their “first” masses. These young men have answered the call to “tend my sheep” for the rest of their lives. But just like us, they will be given challenges to continue to respond to that call every day: to pray, to serve, to be obedient and to do God’s will.

What is OUR response to God’s call? Are we ready to say a resounding yes? Do we pray unceasingly for the grace, and the ability to respond according to God’s will?

Many people have asked Stan and I how we responded to the phone call that our building and offices were on fire just a little over a week ago. Gratefully God continues to reveal himself to us and we were graced to respond and start that day in much the same way as we start every day: with the knowledge that that day, just like every other, was in God’s control, so holding hands we said a prayer – a prayer for safety of the firemen and all that would serve and that through the day and whatever would happen in it His will would be done.

We responded by turning to God in the trust of a prayer.

Our focus now, is to be certain that our continued response is for God’s purpose and not our own. As one of the newly ordained reflected on his responses, his choices, in being called to the priesthood, I reflected on the choices that Stan and I will make over the next few weeks.

I thought back to when we started our businesses and built the building. Then, the choices we made were much more about our immediate needs for jobs and how a new building would be able to accommodate both of our businesses. We focused more on what we needed and how much we could afford to give. God’s call and God’s desires for us to serve Him and his people were “accidental” rather than purposeful thoughts.

Thankfully,  looking back, God had a sure and certain hand in gifting us with what we needed and a purpose for our chosen careers. But, I am pretty sure we didn’t give him the credit he was due, or thank him often enough for all that we were given in and by the serviceability of those buildings.

Our response and our focus now are much different. We are focusing on being patient for the answers to our many prayers of how to rebuild. We pray that our every response and our every choice remain directed by God. We are relying on our faith and trust in him, knowing that He will provide if we make the response and choose to love and to serve.

And our focus on rebuilding is on the thankfulness of the response of others to our needs, of being offered temporary locations at Z Line and Doyles and of the many willing hands who are making these spaces feasible and practical.

While we realize that we ourselves no longer have a “need” for a job, the building or to build we also realize that God calls us to more. He is asking us to serve: our employees, our customers and our community. It is where our response must always be a heartfelt “yes.”

Daily each of us are given challenges and therefore an opportunity to answer “yes” in response to God’s call to serve others regardless of the circumstances of those challenges. Some calls, some challenges, some opportunities are bigger than others, but EVERY choice we make, big or small, is a choice to choose God, to respond to God’s call to love and to serve the needs of others; to pray unceasingly for the Godly responses to the human answers of our “how to” questions.

Heavenly Father, You love us unconditionally and offer us the opportunity to accept you by the responses we make to the challenges placed in our lives. Help us to make choices which show you our grateful acceptance of all that you provide for us daily. Help our love of you be a witness which will convert hearts and hands to more fully love and serve you. Thank you for revealing yourself to us so that we are given the opportunity to respond in faith. May each person who responds to you in faith be given the mercy of peace, joy, hope and comfort in their daily lives. Amen.

What will your response be to God today? Will we be able to say: “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” 2 Tm 4: 7  

Pray unceasingly that you will answer His call and respond to his message, in love, in service and in acceptance of the gifts of every challenge and every opportunity provided.
Blessings,
Charlotte

Friday Prayer Requests

Friends of Faith:
Our prayers today are of continued thanksgiving for all the blessings have received: from God in a beautiful rainbow to start Thursday, along with the mass Scripture which spoke to us of how and why we are called to adversity, and the hope he graces us with; to the many blessings we are receiving from each of you in support by cards and emails, hands, prayers, food and a willingness to be there whenever we call.

We would also ask your continued prayers that the insurance and fire marshall/adjuster would finish their investigation fairly and quickly so that we can begin removing contents from the building and again for patience for us and for our customers.

Many of you have asked how we are doing and how we are doing this: The following is a message I received, before it my reply to her. In actuality this applies to all of us, every day, and for every reason, and speaks exactly as to both hows:

Dear Uncle Stan and Aunt Charlotte,

I was reading my devotional tonight and it made me think of you guys and everything going on this week:

"Stay calmly conscious of Me today, no matter what. Remember that I go before you as well as with you into the day. Nothing takes Me by surprise. I will not allow circumstances to overwhelm you, so long as you look to Me. I will help you cope with whatever the moment presents. Collaborating with Me brings blessings that far outweigh all your troubles.Awareness of My Presence contains Joy that can endure all eventualities.

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
—Psalm 23:1–4 nkjv

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
—2 Corinthians 4:16–17"

Know of my prayers for you- both of thanksgiving that you two continuously look to The Lord for strength and guidance immediately as obstacles come your way, and prayers for strength that you may continue to rely on God and trust His will completely. I will offer a rosary up for you tonight."

And my reply:
Thank you! That is perfect and exactly why we have been able to stay calm. I told Uncle Stan yesterday almost this exact thing....and wondered how anyone without faith would ever make it through life in general.... not even just in a catastrophe.

Thanks for the rosary. We know God is answering our prayers through Mary's intercession.

Love Uncle Stan and Aunt Charlotte

 

I won't post again until my regular Monday morning as we will be spending the weekend with Andy at the ordination of three of his classmates. Pray for the graces bestowed on them as new priests and for all of their spiritual mentors who guide them.

 

May you all be blessed by the grace of God as we are, in faith, in hope and in love,

Through Christ our Lord, Amen!

Charlotte & Stan

 

 

And they are answered again -- Thursday prayer requests

Friends of Faith:
So I have to admit when I wrote yesterday I didn't have as much hope in my request for Wednesday (tools for the shop) as I did for Tuesdays (the internet) -- but once again your prayers for us are being answered and we are being thankfully blessed.
The insurance company has agreed to let the guys pick out "bare necessities" and get them ordered so they can do basic service and diagnostics hopefully early to mid next week (a new prayer).
Actually tomorrow I hear that they are going to use some "spare" tools located at their homes and work together to put together a Ranger someone needs for the 4th of July and do set up on another unit that is sold.
And more blessings and a request for prayer for Thursday: Please pray in Thanksgiving for Randy and Connie Zimmerman and their faithful workers at Zline who are graciously going to pour more cement in the building they are allowing us to work on.
And pray for the safety of the VanHamme crew who is dropping whatever other projects they were working on to do this for us. By Monday we will be blessed with another 25 foot of cemented work area.
So many other blessings: in Thanksgiving for those that finished setting up my desks and painting a wall and for the Doyle's who are letting us use their building. In thanksgiving for customers who continue to shower us with prayers and well wishes and for all of you who are praying that only know us through some other association.
Thursday prayer continued: Please say a prayer that Ashley will be feeling well tomorrow. We think she may have gotten too much sun on Tuesday guarding our driveway.
Finally pray for patience for those customers who are needing service, that they will remain loyal and wait for our tools to be delivered and the cement to dry. Amen!
Thank you, thank you, thank you -- to all of you, and especially to God for the many blessings he is pouring down upon us.
I close with this famous passage that arrived via the mail today: "Come to Me, all of you who are weary and find life burdensome; I will refresh you. Take My yoke on your shoulders and learn from Me, for I  am gentle and humble of Hear. You shall find rest because My yoke is easy and My burden light." Mt 11:28-30
He is waiting for each of us to have a greater faith ... it makes the burden light and gives us rest,
In Christ,
Charlotte

Wednesday Prayer Requests

Friends of Faith:

First, thank you so much for your prayers today. The internet is up and working at the new office!!!! Thank you for great "techies" and for "techies" who keep stock piles of older equipment :)
Also thanks to those who worked in the office, painting and putting together new files and desks. You are very much appreciated. Pray that by tomorrow night I will see the office with a few less boxes and a few more desks.

Wednesday requests -- mostly for Stan -- as he has the much bigger challenges: First for patience with the process of counting and inventoring all of the parts and for those doing the job that they can faithfully and honestly discern those parts that will work and those which need to be included in the insurance claim.

Secondly: For more patience -- with the insurance adjusters who are requiring our mechanics to "wait" to buy new tools from a "required vendor." Procedures? Pray also that the claims adjuster might see wisdom in allowing us to use our expertise and buy tools from our loyal salesman who services us on a regular basis -- especially that we/they don't have to wait for a procedure and can get back to work.

Keep up the prayers for continued discernment of God's will as we decide where and how to set up sales and service locations that are accessible to both staff and our loyal customers.

Finally, prayers for a friend who is having a brain scan tomorrow. That whatever the results they will be accepted in faith.

Praying for a bigger faith and the blessing of peace and joy for all,
Charlotte

Tuesday Prayer Requests

Friends of Faith:

Our prayer requests for Tuesday include a smooth completion of our move into the Doyle's building downtown Toledo -- especially that our internet and wireless will connect and let printers and computers and internet work properly.

Stan's phones were connected today and I have a new office built into Doyle's courtesy of my brother-in-laws. Special thanks today goes to them, to those who answered phones, moved files, vaccumed and donated spare computer parts.

We ask your continued prayers as to how to proceed getting the Polaris side back up and running. How and where to best service our customers and get the sales department some "sheltered" space.

Many thanks for all of the offers to help and for all the yummy goodies and water that have been giving the guys energy to do the "heavy lifting."

Blessings to you all,
Charlotte

A Bigger Faith

Friends of Faith: (See the PS at end.)

Just a short month ago in a personal reflection I wrote:

“We are under the mission of God, and it is God that gives us our mission. (Eph 5: 21-33)

“It seems as if every time I have become very comfortable on my journey with God he gives me/us a new mission.

“My life has always been relatively comfortable – not easy, but I have always had what I have needed. Occasionally what I have received has been taken away (examples given)… But I have always been given more… (examples given).” (I used examples of how life’s natural progression (farewells), while sad and sometimes even painful, had enriched me with new and, looking back, greater, and often times unexpected blessings.)

 

Last Wednesday, as the kids and grandkids who had spent several days with us all headed back to their respective homes, jobs and activities, leaving us once again empty nested and quiet, Stan and I reflected on the many blessings we share.

And we talked about how we hoped that not only did we share the gifts that God has given us together—the faith, the joys, and the blessings—but that we were also wisely discerning and using these gifts for the service of others as God intends and calls us to do.

God really only asks for one thing: to have a bigger faith in him. And he gave us the two greatest commandments so that we would constantly search for that bigger faith—in him and through him.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Mk 12: 30-31

 

A faith and trust in God, and love and service for others. Not a faith to find and then keep to ourselves, but a bigger faith that shares and which searches for and gives outside of ourselves.

 

On Friday morning, God quite literally “set us a fire.”

 

He said to Stan and I: “Don’t be comfortable in the faith and blessings I have given you. I have given you much, and to those I give much, more will be asked. I have a new mission for you, and I will guide you: IF you will grow a bigger faith and IF you will let me guide you; if you will love me, if you will trust me, and if you will serve me; if you will serve others by allowing them to serve you; if you will all grow a bigger faith in me together.”

 

We have already seen many blessings, the biggest of those being the safety of all of our employees, volunteers and the fire crews, for each of you and your prayers, and the not so big, for the many records that were spared.

 

And we are trusting that our prayers for timely guidance will be answered. We know we will face many more challenges, challenges which will require us to have a bigger faith in God. And it gives us great comfort and peace to know that we are not in this faith journey alone.

 

Why does God ask or allow us to “suffer?” For the same reason that God asked his Son to suffer, so that thru the example of Christ, we would each become a piece of Christ (just as we are all members of the one body of Christ) so that we would help each other grow bigger together in our faith in Christ.

 

This journey of life here on earth is not meant to be easy but it is meant to be joyful. The journey here is meant for us all to help each other get to heaven by growing faithfully dependent on Him, by loving and serving Him and each other and in doing that we find much joy.

 

All of the stuff we may have lost is not even a mark on the ground, compared to all that we have found in shared faith, love, joy and smiles with you over this weekend and that we anticipate in faith in the coming weeks.

Heavenly Father, our greatest blessing is found in our faith in You. Thank you for the love You constantly show us through the many blessings of friends and family. Continue to protect and bless all who serve you, but most especially today those who serve us in any way. In faith, we ask you to guide us and give us our new direction. Just as the two greatest commandments ask, help us to put you and the needs of others first. Grow in us, and through us, a bigger faith for all. We place our trust in You. Amen.

 

This is only the first I am sure of many thank you’s: for your continued prayers, your love, your support, and your willing hands. We ask that God grant each of you his grace and blessings by growing in and through a bigger faith.

God is trying to set a fire in all of our lives. May we open the door of our hearts to allow God to set us on fire so that we will grow into a bigger faith in Him,

Blessings and our heartfelt thank you’s,

In the Peace of Christ,

Charlotte & Stan

PS: In order not to fill your email boxes (please feel free to use mine) and to give you our daily prayer need updates I will use this blogspot as a “caring page”to update you on a more frequent basis.

Special Fire Request

To all: (Written on June 22)

First thank you for your continued prayers and thoughts. Please pray for our guidance in knowing how to proceed forward. We know God has a plan. We want to do it his way!

Second: Please don't be offended if we don't answer your text and emails right away -- it will however, probably be faster if you text or email me rather than Stan, especially if it needs an immediate answer.

As of now we can only do limited clean up because the fire marshall has to investigate first. We only know that the fire started at the far East end of the building. It will be a slow process as the building is currently not safe and needs to be secured and also everything has to be inventoried for insurance.

We have kept a list of all who have offered their help and will call if we need additional hands.

Again, thank you very much for your prayers, thoughts and support.

Love, Peace and Blessings,

Charlotte and Stan