Accept the Unexpected: A YES Lesson from Mary

September 3, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38

Mary went through a lot in her lifetime, but we never get the sense that she strayed from her trust in God. The evidence of trust in the young girl who said, "Be it done to me according to your word" (Luke 1:38) remains until the last mention of Mary in Scripture, gathering with the first group of believers in Jerusalem, praying and waiting for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 1:14). We can draw the conclusion that she was there and experienced the birth of the church with Peter and the others mentioned there.

So, what would be the secret to her staying power? How did she live the YES life through the ups and downs of so much change and challenge? Since Joseph is not mentioned past the time when, at twelve, Jesus was found in the temple talking with the teachers, it's likely she lost her husband at an early age. She witnessed her son straying from the normal life path for people of her community, becoming an itinerant preacher who gained a large following and stirred up strong opposition, until eventually, she stood at the foot of the cross and watched him die. And yet, if she was praying with the early believers she must have also accepted and experienced the joy of his resurrection. What was her secret? What can we learn from her about living the YES life?

In all these things Mary learned to accept the unexpected.

Setting Sail for the Next Leg of My Journey: Honoring My YES Adventure

August 27, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 NIV

The YES Adventure. That’s the name of this website and blog. Following God becomes an adventure the moment we say YES to Him. When you say YES to God, He will take you places you never expected to go and enable you to do things you never expected to do. He will do more in you than you have ever expected and more through you than you ever imagined. My challenge to you: Discover YOUR more when you give God your YES. That has been my experience and it’s what I want for you.

This week my adventure included a milestone birthday. Milestones always inspire reflection for me. They are an opportunity to look back and celebrate how far I have come. But they are also an opportunity to dream about where I am going next. Do you do that?

As I have considered this milestone, I have wanted to honor the adventure God has taken me on. From my first YES, He has led me from a scared, self-centered girl to a confident, caring woman who spends her life serving others. My girlhood dream was to be a famous actress. My grown-up dream is to fulfill God's purposes for my life, which included becoming a minister and serving His people. That’s a journey I never expected to take! My life is so much more fulfilling and satisfying than I ever dreamed it could be. And at this juncture many people would be looking toward retirement, winding down. Tom and I are in the process of preparing to gear up for a new season of service and are training for new adventures. I shake my head. How did we get here? One YES at a time. YES by YES. And more to go!

Let's Pray!

August 20, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Greetings, Dear Friend! Let’s pray some Scripture together!

Father, I am Yours. I will seek You and Your strength. I will seek Your presence continually. (Psalms 105:4, 1 Chronicles 16:11)

Lord, I thank You for being present and active in my life. Help me to acknowledge You in all my ways trusting You to direct my path. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

Help me to listen for Your voice behind me saying, “This is the way. Walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

Lord, I know that I am unable to fulfill Your purposes without Your power. Apart from You, I can do absolutely nothing. (John 15:5)

Do Your work in me so that You can do Your work through me. You give me the want-to and the ability to do what pleases You. (Philippians 2:13)

My Shepherd, And Yours

August 13, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Psalm 23

Because the Lord Himself is my Shepherd. I will always have all that is essential for my life.

He brings me to places of abundance and peace. He soothes my inner struggles and renews the hope of my heart.

He leads me to walk in the paths that please Him. He guides me to go in the way that honors Him because He calls me His.

When my path unavoidably passes through the evils of earthly life and the darkness of death dims the way ahead, my heart is at rest because I know You are present in the pain. You comfort me with your correction. You lead me within the loving limits of Your long-proven pathways.

Celebration

August 6, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Today, Lord, I celebrate You:

In the sun and the heat,
In the cold and the chill,
When the sun rises over the mountains,
When the sun sets beyond the ocean.

I celebrate You:

In the voices that I hear,
In the songs of the birds,
In the faces that I see,
In the colorful variety of flowers.

Legalism or Love?

July 30, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. ' Colossians 2:16-17

I recently had the privilege of bringing someone to take their driving test. They had already taken the written test and gotten in their practice hours. Now they just needed to convince the evaluator that they were not a threat on the road! They had to demonstrate a knowledge of the rules and the skill to keep them. Thankfully, they passed! Now they have the freedom and privilege of driving solo. It’s both a relief and a responsibility.

Imagine someone saying, “I don’t want to drive. There are too many rules! They won’t let me drive as fast as I want, and they won’t let me drive on the other side of the road. If I can’t drive my way, I don’t want to drive at all!” Sounds pretty foolish, doesn’t it? When someone is going for their driver’s license, they accept the noes as part of the package. They recognize that the noes are part of order and safety so that driving can be a useful and enjoyable experience for everyone. They focus on the freedom of driving, not the restrictions.

Why is it that Christianity has become known as a religion of noes?

Happily Ever After? Really?

July 23, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

I have loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31:3

I was 14. He was almost 18. It was my first "real" relationship. I remember the moment he said "I love you. And I've never said that to anyone before!" I believed him. He believed himself. We were happy. What else would we be?!

It lasted almost a year. An eternity as far as teenage relationships go! When it ended there was no amicable separation or catastrophic blowout. I saw him kissing someone else. He knew it and stopped calling. I was cast aside. His love for me had come to an end. Where was the happy ending every romantic movie, book, or fairy tale promised me? Was it my fault? Was I not lovable?

Romantic love. It seems like everyone wants it. It certainly is big business, but is it good business? Does it promise something it can’t deliver? Romantic love sells products, movies, and experiences. An entire TV channel is devoted to romantic movies! Every single one has a happy ending. But it doesn’t really happen, does it? You've been hurt by the fractured fairy tale, just as I have been. If we all know that "happily ever after" isn't reality, then what is it in us that cries out for love that lasts forever?

Experts recognize that the need to be loved is basic to every human being. If that is so, then there can only be one reason: We are God-wired for love. Why? Because you and I are made to be loved by Him. he has hard-wired us to want to be loved unconditionally, unceasingly, and unapologetically. The problem is that, as in so many other areas of life, we look for that need to be met in an earthly and natural way, rather than in a heavenly and supernatural way.

Are You A Forgiven Forgiver?

July 16, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. Colossians 3:13

There are those moments that become engraved in memory. Often, they are the most beautiful moments. The proposal. The graduation. The birth. But sometimes, they are the most painful moments: The breakup. The failure. The loss. This was one of those kinds of moments.

It isn’t necessary, or wise, for me to share the details with you. It was a moment of great loss, loss of position, loss of hope, loss of future. The loss was a decision, someone else’s decision, and the result of things out of my control. I understood the outcome but had hoped that there might be a different way to resolve the issues. Yet here it was. Loss. Pain. An uncertain future.

Thankfully, within a few months, hope was reborn and a new future began to take shape. I didn’t feel anger or resentment toward the one who made the decision, yet whenever I heard a message on forgiveness, that moment of loss was the one that always came to mind, even years later. I found that difficult to understand. I once heard a message that forgiveness is like peeling an onion and we sometimes have layers of hurt to forgive. That makes sense, but this wasn’t one of those situations. So, why did it continue to come to mind?

Are You Worth The Risk?

July 9, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. Ephesians 1:5

What could have been one of my most terrifying childhood memories has become one of my most treasured moments because someone decided I was worth it.

At ten years old I was already comfortable swimming in the deep end of the pool. In fact, I loved it! One of my favorite games with a friend was to push ourselves from the surface to the bottom of the pool and then back up. We had spent summer mornings at swimming lessons for the past several years. I knew my way around the water and had a great time splashing, swimming, and playing water games.

My dad has always wanted to see as much of the world as he can. When you have a family, traveling can be cost-prohibitive, but Dad found that renting a camper for our summer vacations gave us the opportunity to go further on a smaller budget. One of his favorite activities was planning our itinerary and determining which new places we would visit.

My ten-year-old summer we took our first trip to the Midwest to visit with some college friends of Mom and Dad. They had a really cool house with a gas fireplace that opened into the rooms on either side of it. For someone who had never seen a gas fireplace before it was awesome! The house was situated in a community that had a pool and tennis courts and other recreational activities.

One afternoon we all went to the rec center, Mom and Dad, their friends, their friends' kids, my siblings, and me. We kids had no complaints about playing in the pool while the adults watched tennis in an adjoining area. The adults were within easy distance of the kids but didn't feel the need to be watching us every moment. We were all old enough and comfortable enough in the water.

This pool had something that made it especially enticing: A water slide! Our family had a pool, but not a slide. Every one of us got in line for turn after turn, sliding and splashing into the water. We relished the excitement of whishing down the slippery slide, hanging in the humid air, and then plunging into the cool, chlorinated wet.

I had been down the slide a number of times without incident. But this time when I hit the water, I became disoriented and couldn't find which way was up. The taste of chlorine filled my mouth. I was flailing my arms trying to find my floating balance and heard myself making unintelligible noises. "Help!" I realized it was my voice calling out.

Through my panicked splashing, I saw my Dad turn and start running toward me. Before anyone had time to think, he dove into the water, fully dressed — glasses, watch, sneakers, and all — and pulled me to the side of the pool. We both got out dripping, and out of breath.

Tribute to a Transformed Life

July 2, 2022 Cathleen Zahradnik

'For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him, you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead. 'Colossians 2:12

Can people really change? That’s a question that gets knocked around quite a bit. I am here to tell you that they can, and they do. They absolutely do! God is in the business of transformation. With Him, lives are transformed. It’s true!

My wonderful husband reached a memorable birthday milestone this week and he is proof that people can be transformed. Tom is my best friend, my confidante, my challenger, and my cheerleader. I would not be here now doing this if he had not challenged me to keep moving forward in discovering my own purpose, and the more that God has for me.

Tom and I have known each other since we were eleven or twelve years old. Maybe even earlier. We don’t remember meeting each other. We knew each other before we each committed our lives to Christ. I knew him well then and I can testify to the transformational power of God. He is not the same person I knew. He is not even the same person I married. He is a different man. The old life truly has been buried and the new life is continually being created.

I knew Tom before he committed his life to Christ, and I have had a front-row seat to the transformation that Jesus has made of this man. He started as a depressed and frightened, unstable, quick-witted, and sarcastic attention stealer. He has become a confident, compassionate, articulate, and trustworthy leader. That has not come without cost. There have been struggles as he emerged from that cocoon of chaos. But now he soars. He really soars!

If you don’t mind, I’d like to shift my talk to Tom right now. Listen in as I share with him some of what I have learned from watching his metamorphosis.

Transformation requires hope in Christ as an anchor, even in the darkest times.

September 12, 2026

This is Not Forever

“For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.” 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 NLT

As I tearfully opened the sodden boxes of our stored belongings, wondering what was ruined, a verse came to mind,

“Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” Matthew 6:19-21 NLT

We were temporarily living with my parents, and our stuff was stored in Tom’s parents' garage. They had a plumbing issue in their bathroom above the garage, causing a leak that soaked several of our boxes and other items, including our mattress. We weren’t sure what was salvageable.

That period of time was already difficult. We were waiting for a job to open up and unsure how long that would take, how long we would be living with my parents, how long our stuff would be stored. Both sets of parents had been patient, loving, and gracious. There was no one to blame for the water damage. Sometimes things just happen.

But when that verse popped into my brain, it completely changed my perspective on going through the damage. The tears didn’t stop. There was some mourning and disappointment. But at the same time, there was hope. This was temporary. These things were just things. What really mattered was how I responded. I could choose an eternal perspective. I could choose to treasure Christ more than an earthly possession.

As it turned out, very few of our things were unsalvageable, and insurance more than covered anything that was lost. But the eternal perspective I gained is a treasure that I still carry. That simple shift helped me through the three and a half years of living in the in-between.