HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK SHAW!

Hey TIL Family & Friends,

I just wanted to let everyone out there know our fearless founder of  TIL is celebrating a Birthday today!  Please take a moment and drop a birthday comment to him on our blog.   Mark buddy, you are a joy to serve the LORD with & I thank God daily for our friendship.  I hate you have to enjoy your special day under the weather with the Swine Flu. What a joy it is that we can focus on God’s Sovereignty during tough times.  We will continue to flood Heaven with prayers on you, Mary & the kids behalf.

 

We have several people emailing offering to bring food for your family this week, so please let me know if we can!

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARK!

 

15 My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

 ¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

 ¹⁷ How precious to  me are your thoughts, O God!
       How vast is the sum of them!

-Psalm 139:15-17

 

 

 

 

Your brother in Christ,

 

Jason

Swine Flu Update

All six of us in my family have the flu. It’s miserable. Our oldest son was the last one to get it today.

We’re just taking it easy, drinking lots of fluids, and my wife is taking care of all of us while she’s sick.

Some of us feel better today than yesterday. Thank you for your prayers!

-Mark (God is good all the time!)

The faithfulness of a child

I have an eight year old daughter who faithfully reads her DAILY BREAD devotional AND her Bible each morning. She is like clockwork and more faithful than BOTH of her parents!

In fact, we went on a recent trip and she had her devo book with her! She had packed it and read it on her vacation.

8 years old!

I think we underestimate our children’s ability to be responsible because we are so irresponsible.

Nothing like the uncluttered mind of a child.

-Mark (asking the Lord to remove my cluttered thoughts and to replace them with His truth)

Nothing in life gives me much more joy than…

…seeing my 13 year old son reading the Bible in the mornings on his bedroom floor!

Praise the Lord!

-Mark (wow! God is good!)

Back from an exhausting trip to Florida – (and bats)

Attended my grandmother’s funeral with my wife, 4 children, mom & dad in Florida over the weekend and into Monday. We just returned late last night (right before midnight). 1200 mile trip in 3 days, and most of it was driving – thankfully, we rested on Sunday. We really had a good trip and had NO electronics for the children – no DVD players, video games, etc. for the 24 hours in our van! That’s the true miracle but our children had fun with each other and we sang, played games, talked and laughed most of the time (a few angry outbursts erupted!).

We got back home last night and saw our pet BAT had been keeping the bugs out of our carport for us, too. (Bats are creepy-looking.)

We are exhausted now but eager to get back to doing the Lord’s work through TIL.

I wrote this email solely for the purpose of thanking YOU for praying for us during this time of grieving. My dad, Ronny, appreciates it as well as I do. Our family had a nice graveside service that went very well and I saw people in my family that I had not seen in 15 years.

One last note: though these were blood relatives we saw in Florida, what I find to be so wonderful is that I have spiritual relatives who are filled with the Holy Spirit. This new family of God is such a blessing for me as I have brothers and sisters in Christ!

Have you thanked the Lord for your spiritual family lately? What a gift from Him to give us each other in the body of Christ expressed through local churches!

Anyway, Ronny and I are back in the saddle today at Bethel Baptist Church!

Special thanks to Jason who manned the phones and taught an Intro class for me this weekend! He’s a brother in Christ for sure!

-Mark (realizing that Christ is the only tie that binds us together)

We work with children and teens!

Not everyone knows that we provide biblical counseling to children and teens! We are counseling more and more young people and I love it because teens are fertile ground.

They are teachable (most times) and do their assigned homework unlike many adults. In fact, many of our young people who we are currently ministering to, run circles around some of our adults in terms of their child-like faith and even accurate knowledge of the Scriptures!

Recently, we saw an entire family become reconciled to God and each other and the Lord worked through the children! Praise His Holy Name!

It’s a blessing to work with young people and their families! We have over 13 biblical counselors who have a gift of working with children and teens! What a blessing!

One final note: We counsel teens and children as long as their guardians/parents are part of the process! Parents must be willing to meet with us FIRST and be active in the biblical counseling process or it will not be as effective as it could be!

-Mark (thankful to work with young people who sometimes challenge me in my walk with Him)

Guitar Grace

Neat story. True story.

My son is 13 and plays guitar. One of his strings broke the same day we had it re-strung! Ouch!

He was upset when he told me about it. It was an accident. I told him that his Grandfather would take it back the next day with him to get it re-strung. I told him to pray for God’s mercy that maybe they’d fix it for him for free. He said, “But I can’t count on that, Dad.”

I told him that he must be prepared for either outcome since either one means God knows best and will reflect His goodness. He agreed.

Later that night, his grandfather said the same thing I did – that he should pray for God’s mercy.

I told him that I would NOT pray for him but that he must pray to Christ himself because it is his relationship with God that I want to encourage. He understood that it was between God and him.

The next day, I asked him about his trip to the guitar shop and he told me that not only had the nice man re-strung it for free but that he had offered to jam with my son sometime. God’s mercy was above and beyond his expectations!

I only tell this story to encourage you parents to foster your child’s relationship with Christ. Don’t get in the way of that relationship by praying the prayer for them. Ask your child to pray and you can agree with him/her in prayer but don’t get in the way!

I am thankful to the Lord that He poured out His mercy on my son to show my son how loving, gracious, faithful, and merciful He is!

-Mark (I’m pickin’ and grinnin’ in Christ)