So, God woke me up in the middle of the night last night with an urgency to write this blog today. Several times at different parts of the night He awoke me with different scripture and stories from the bible that by morning all came together in my mind.
Recently I've talked to several different women all of who is struggling in some form or another with "waiting on the Lord" for a break through or a miracle weather it be with their jobs, finances, their own lives, children's lives etc. And several times this week I've found myself repeating Psalm 45:10 "Be still and know that I am God..." not only to myself but to other women who need to hear it, believe it and live it. "Be still" or "wait" on the Lord has never been one of my strong points in my walk with God. I tend to wait as long as I can and then just say "okay, time for ME to step in" I've been patient long enough! And then things never turn out the way I want them, because I can't just "wait" for them! When I do things on my own because I'm not perfect I tend to mess those things up, but when I "wait" on the Lord, and because he is perfect, it always turns out perfect.
Another verse that goes along with this would be Isaiah 40:31 "They that WAIT on the Lord, shall renew their strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary they will walk and not faint" This verse not only tells us to "wait" on the Lord but it also gives us a promise that if we are faithful and trust in God, he will strengthen us, he will let us soar to new places! It's always nice to be reminded of a promise from God when we are in the midst of "waiting" on Him especially when the situation looks unpromising, and we've been waiting for weeks, months or even years!
I've been reading a new book By Billy Graham called "The Holy Spirit." Last night I was reading about when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. In Acts 1:4, Jesus commanded his followers not to leave Jerusalem, but to "wait" for the gift(Holy Spirit) that was promised to them. He also told them in Acts 1:8, that they will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes, and that they will be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. On the day of Pentecost a group of about 120(Acts 1:15) were all together praying when they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them (Acts 2:3-4) All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
So here are Jesus's followers I'm sure they are anxiously awaiting this "promise" or this "gift" that was told was coming, and they were told to stay in one place and "wait." I'm sure they were excited to get out and spread the good news about Jesus and what he had done and share the gospel and transform lives, but do you think they would have been effective if they did that without "waiting" as God told them for the Holy Spirit? If they had just left and went out on their own instead of waiting on their promise, they would have no power within themselves to witness to the ends of the earth. Do you think without the power of God (the Holy Spirit) and his perfect plan that they would have converted Jews, the very people who put Jesus on the cross to be His followers?
The word Fire, when I look up the definition has several! A few of them I read were "To inspire", "To inflame with passion." In Exodus 3:2-10, God comes to Moses in the form of a burning bush (or fire). Before this happened (as with Jesus's followers before they saw the Flames of tongues), The people of Egypt had been "waiting" on the Lord to deliver them from slavery. Had they taken off themselves and tried to free themselves, I'm sure they would have been put to death, however, God came to give them inspiration, and give them passion back in their lives by bringing with Him a promise! A promise to free them and take them into the promised land!
It's so hard to wait on the Lord, especially not being aware of or reminded of the promises He has for us. But after God showed me this, and how there is SUCH a huge promise, not only will he take care of my troubles, but he will give me power, he will give me strength, he will give me inspiration and more passion for him than I have ever had before. God wants to give us these things! The "waiting" is so hard sometimes especially if we've been doing it for years, but in the end, things turn out perfect the way God intended for them to be. What better way to take care of problems then to turn it over to someone who is already perfect, and already knows what is going to happen anyways. So ladies, I encourage you to wait for your "promise" don't take life on yourselves because none of us are perfect and if your anything like me I mess things up all the time! Wait for your perfect Promise!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
Changing the hearts of men on a crazy night!
So today started out like any normal day, laundry, dishes, kids etc... I decided to make Lasagna for dinner and had enough left to take to my parents tonight and visit for a little while! I had finished off the end of the two books I had been reading which have been amazing! "A Woman after God's Own Heart" by Elizabeth George and "The Power of a simple prayer" by Joyce Meyer. God has been doing so much in my life with these books I've decided from reading "A woman after God's own heart" to study more on the Holy Spirit, and Prayer. I believe in the power of prayer SO much however my prayer life has never been where I want it to be. I hear all these people spending hours in prayer and mine last for 5-10 minutes. Am I just not spiritual enough, do I just not know how to pray correctly? So I decided to learn more about it and just ask God to show me how he wants me to pray. One of the biggest frustrations I've had is praying in the Spirit, which will go hand in hand with my Holy Spirit study. For the last 4 years I have prayed and asked the Lord to be able to pray in the spirit, and what I thought was the gift of praying in tongues, was never received. At times I felt like it was coming but never actually fully happened. So while reading "The power of a simple prayer" I discovered that praying in the spirit was not just praying in a prayer language. It could be as "simple" as just waiting on the Lord to lay something on your heart to pray. As simple as not praying for me and my family and the things going on all the time but to listen to the spirit and pray for softened hearts, joy, the leading to do God's will. Allowing the spirit to lead you to pray for the hearts to change and not just the situations.
My husband Nathan was at one time going to school to be a Lawyer to fight for Christian rights, he is totally the smartest man I know, and would have been a fantastic Lawyer and still could be. However, after he was halfway through before deciding to go to Law school, God showed him that "it's the heart of men that need to change, not the laws." After that he decided to go into ministry and follow God's calling on his life to "change the hearts of man." The first place someone aims for if they are trying to kill someone is the heart, and that should be the first place we aim for in prayer when trying to change situations in our lives or trying to stop bad things from happening.
So after dinner I packed up the kids, and headed out to my parents house. I got to the stop light and realized I had forgotten the book I was going to bring her so turned around and headed back. I was going around the curve down the road from our house and as I hit the middle of the curve I see a police car coming straight towards me head on in my lane! I started to brake and at the last second she looked up from whatever she was doing and corrected herself before almost hitting me head on! A little shaken I continued home to get the book, got back in the car and headed to my parents house. On the way there the road started to merge from 2 lanes to 1 and I decided to pass the car in front of me before that happened. I got in the left lane and started to go a little faster, and so did the other car, and a little faster and so did the other car, then when I got next to the car he tried to run me off the road and jumped in front of me!
I made it safely to my parents house, and headed home around 9:10. Called my husband at church he said he was locking up the church and heading home too so he should be there before me, and while we were talking the phone went dead. I got home and he wasn't there yet, nor would he answer his phone. So being the crazy night it was I decided to just drive past the church and make sure he was okay. I pulled out of the driveway and two houses down from me saw a figure running down the hill towards my car, and then a 12 year old boy with no shirt on threw himself on the ground right in front of my car!! I braked and he looked up at me and go up and ran off. My first thought was to call the cops, what is a 12 year old kid doing throwing himself shirtless in front of cars at 9:30 at night! But I didn't I just thought I'll wait and check things out when I got back I'd only be gone 5 minutes or so.
I pulled around the corner and saw two black dogs running in the middle of the street, slowed down waited for them to pass so I didn't hit them and kept going. After I got to the church and realized Nathan wasn't there I went back home but this time, I got to the spot where the dogs had been running and saw something black laying in the middle of the road. As I came up on it I realized it was a black lab, and she had been hit pretty badly. Now I'm not usually an animal person, if I see an animal in the street who has been hit and is already dead I'd more than likely keep going. However as I slowed down and got close to her, I realized she was still alive. I stopped the car and turned around to shine the headlights on her, called 911 (which was bound to happen at some point tonight) and asked for help. As I got out of the car, I saw her panting heavily, struggling to stay alive. Two kids came running up to me saying they saw what happened! They said a guy in a huge truck hit her really hard and kept going! I saw she had tags but I wasn't sure weather to look at them and see if there was a number for the owner, I was afraid to touch her, didn't know if I would cause more pain and she would bite me or if I should just let her be. So I decided since I'm not great with animals anyways to let her be.
Nathan showed up behind my car, and got out to help. We directed traffic around her until help got there but people seemed like they didn't' care that there was blood everywhere and the dog was fighting for her life, they just wanted to get by as quick as possible even if that meant hitting her again (which we kept from happening but seemed pretty close at times).
Once the police got there so did her owners, by that time her breathing was so shallow I had to get pretty close to her to tell if she was still alive. The lady was sobbing and so upset like it was a child who had been hit. We gathered up what we could find in Nathan & Is cars and gave them some towels to get her in their car and to the emergency vets office. Whether she made it or not I don't know, and probably will never know, but I sure do hope so!
The thing that struck me so hard about this was she was hurting so bad, barely breathing but yet she didn't cry out, she wasn't whimpering, she just layed there like she trusted that help was on the way. It made me think of many times have I been hurting feeling like I've been hit hard by life and all I can do is cry out, all I can do is whimper about my situation or problems or how much we've been through the last few years, when if only I'd just "be still and KNOW...he is God!" and that my help is on the way even if it's down to the last second, and things are not looking good, or working out the way I wanted, if I just take my eyes off the situation and concentrate on my heart, God will be there to rescue me and help me make it through.
Now the one regret I did have in the situation is while I was standing there watching this woman sobbing over the dog and petting her telling her everything is going to be okay, I thought to myself "what can I do to help her?" and I thought "I need to just start praying for the dog!" then I started to think "but it's a dog!" After everything was all finished and done and we were back home Nathan & I both said the same thing about we should have prayed for the dog! What I didn't remember at the time is even though it was a dog, it's still a creation of God, and God can do anything and could have healed that dog right there in the street if only I was obedient and prayed over this dog like I felt I should have! But instead I let my thoughts and insecurities get the best of me and I didn't do it. I did pray for her once I got home and also know that now I need to pray for more boldness so that when the spirit lays something on my heart to pray for I do what I'm suppose to weather it's a dog, a cat, a mouse, or a person!
Someone once told me a story of a woman who was driving down the road and God spoke to her and told her to into that 7-11 and go back to the drinking fountains and stand on her head. The woman drove past the 7-11 but couldn't get that out of her mind, so feeling crazy she turned around went to the 7-11 walked back to the drinking fountains and stood on her head. When she was done she walked past the clerk and tried getting out the door asap! However the clerk yelled for her "ma am!! MA AM! I need to know why you just did that!!!" She turned to him and said "because God told me to!" The man broke down and started crying, he began telling her that minutes earlier he had a gun to his head, and was about to pull the trigger because he just didn't think that God existed anymore. He had so many things going wrong in his life that he just felt like God didn't care about him, so he said "God, if you exist and care about me, send someone in here to stand on their head by the drink fountain!"
So again we never know why we are in that place at that time, or what our prayers for a dog or a person's heart will change. God still does miracles every day, and I'm still praying tonight that that dog will get her miracle!
My husband Nathan was at one time going to school to be a Lawyer to fight for Christian rights, he is totally the smartest man I know, and would have been a fantastic Lawyer and still could be. However, after he was halfway through before deciding to go to Law school, God showed him that "it's the heart of men that need to change, not the laws." After that he decided to go into ministry and follow God's calling on his life to "change the hearts of man." The first place someone aims for if they are trying to kill someone is the heart, and that should be the first place we aim for in prayer when trying to change situations in our lives or trying to stop bad things from happening.
So after dinner I packed up the kids, and headed out to my parents house. I got to the stop light and realized I had forgotten the book I was going to bring her so turned around and headed back. I was going around the curve down the road from our house and as I hit the middle of the curve I see a police car coming straight towards me head on in my lane! I started to brake and at the last second she looked up from whatever she was doing and corrected herself before almost hitting me head on! A little shaken I continued home to get the book, got back in the car and headed to my parents house. On the way there the road started to merge from 2 lanes to 1 and I decided to pass the car in front of me before that happened. I got in the left lane and started to go a little faster, and so did the other car, and a little faster and so did the other car, then when I got next to the car he tried to run me off the road and jumped in front of me!
I made it safely to my parents house, and headed home around 9:10. Called my husband at church he said he was locking up the church and heading home too so he should be there before me, and while we were talking the phone went dead. I got home and he wasn't there yet, nor would he answer his phone. So being the crazy night it was I decided to just drive past the church and make sure he was okay. I pulled out of the driveway and two houses down from me saw a figure running down the hill towards my car, and then a 12 year old boy with no shirt on threw himself on the ground right in front of my car!! I braked and he looked up at me and go up and ran off. My first thought was to call the cops, what is a 12 year old kid doing throwing himself shirtless in front of cars at 9:30 at night! But I didn't I just thought I'll wait and check things out when I got back I'd only be gone 5 minutes or so.
I pulled around the corner and saw two black dogs running in the middle of the street, slowed down waited for them to pass so I didn't hit them and kept going. After I got to the church and realized Nathan wasn't there I went back home but this time, I got to the spot where the dogs had been running and saw something black laying in the middle of the road. As I came up on it I realized it was a black lab, and she had been hit pretty badly. Now I'm not usually an animal person, if I see an animal in the street who has been hit and is already dead I'd more than likely keep going. However as I slowed down and got close to her, I realized she was still alive. I stopped the car and turned around to shine the headlights on her, called 911 (which was bound to happen at some point tonight) and asked for help. As I got out of the car, I saw her panting heavily, struggling to stay alive. Two kids came running up to me saying they saw what happened! They said a guy in a huge truck hit her really hard and kept going! I saw she had tags but I wasn't sure weather to look at them and see if there was a number for the owner, I was afraid to touch her, didn't know if I would cause more pain and she would bite me or if I should just let her be. So I decided since I'm not great with animals anyways to let her be.
Nathan showed up behind my car, and got out to help. We directed traffic around her until help got there but people seemed like they didn't' care that there was blood everywhere and the dog was fighting for her life, they just wanted to get by as quick as possible even if that meant hitting her again (which we kept from happening but seemed pretty close at times).
Once the police got there so did her owners, by that time her breathing was so shallow I had to get pretty close to her to tell if she was still alive. The lady was sobbing and so upset like it was a child who had been hit. We gathered up what we could find in Nathan & Is cars and gave them some towels to get her in their car and to the emergency vets office. Whether she made it or not I don't know, and probably will never know, but I sure do hope so!
The thing that struck me so hard about this was she was hurting so bad, barely breathing but yet she didn't cry out, she wasn't whimpering, she just layed there like she trusted that help was on the way. It made me think of many times have I been hurting feeling like I've been hit hard by life and all I can do is cry out, all I can do is whimper about my situation or problems or how much we've been through the last few years, when if only I'd just "be still and KNOW...he is God!" and that my help is on the way even if it's down to the last second, and things are not looking good, or working out the way I wanted, if I just take my eyes off the situation and concentrate on my heart, God will be there to rescue me and help me make it through.
Now the one regret I did have in the situation is while I was standing there watching this woman sobbing over the dog and petting her telling her everything is going to be okay, I thought to myself "what can I do to help her?" and I thought "I need to just start praying for the dog!" then I started to think "but it's a dog!" After everything was all finished and done and we were back home Nathan & I both said the same thing about we should have prayed for the dog! What I didn't remember at the time is even though it was a dog, it's still a creation of God, and God can do anything and could have healed that dog right there in the street if only I was obedient and prayed over this dog like I felt I should have! But instead I let my thoughts and insecurities get the best of me and I didn't do it. I did pray for her once I got home and also know that now I need to pray for more boldness so that when the spirit lays something on my heart to pray for I do what I'm suppose to weather it's a dog, a cat, a mouse, or a person!
Someone once told me a story of a woman who was driving down the road and God spoke to her and told her to into that 7-11 and go back to the drinking fountains and stand on her head. The woman drove past the 7-11 but couldn't get that out of her mind, so feeling crazy she turned around went to the 7-11 walked back to the drinking fountains and stood on her head. When she was done she walked past the clerk and tried getting out the door asap! However the clerk yelled for her "ma am!! MA AM! I need to know why you just did that!!!" She turned to him and said "because God told me to!" The man broke down and started crying, he began telling her that minutes earlier he had a gun to his head, and was about to pull the trigger because he just didn't think that God existed anymore. He had so many things going wrong in his life that he just felt like God didn't care about him, so he said "God, if you exist and care about me, send someone in here to stand on their head by the drink fountain!"
So again we never know why we are in that place at that time, or what our prayers for a dog or a person's heart will change. God still does miracles every day, and I'm still praying tonight that that dog will get her miracle!
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Baby steps to not being overwhelmed
So one thing I've learned being a stay at home mom is if things at home get out of control or left undone for one day, it takes several days to get things back in order to where they need to be. The wisest advice someone gave me for being a stay at home mom and keeping up with the the house is "never let it get out of order" which has been a struggle for me with three little ones, and even worse when I'm pregnant and not feeling 100%.
As a wife and mother, I know several other wives and mothers whose lives also get out of control, and struggle to keep up with things, and struggle to find time with God during those busy days. These are the same women (myself included) who feel so much guilt when they don't accomplish what they wanted to in one day, or a week or who feel that they are a failure because they didn't teach their child a bible lesson today or didn't get much homeschooling done with their child today, or didn't get much housework today. There is so much included in being a effective Godly wife and mother, so many expectations that we can have of ourselves and even expectations our husbands and children might have of us that it can be very overwhelming at times.
I was watching the show "hoarders" last night and one of the things that caused these women to not be able to keep up with cleaning their homes was they became so overwhelmed with looking around at all the piles and rooms full of things and trash to clean that just cleaning one corner of a room at a time for them was discouraging! They would become overwhelmed and just think "whats the use the rest of the house is dirty anyways." As women we tend to do the same thing at times, we start working on an area of our lives and then look around at all the work that is left to do and we think "whats the use!" And that is what we need to stop doing!
We need to start focusing on one area of our lives, our house, & our children's lives at a time and not look up until we have accomplished our goal. It's when we start looking around at all the other things we want to accomplish, and we stop looking at what we already have accomplished that we get side tracked and fall apart.
This week for me has been HUGE! I had been feeling pretty overwhelmed by housework, in a days time I will have done at least 4 loads of laundry, two-three loads of dishes, cleaned the living room at least 5 times, vacuumed 3 times, picked up toys 10 times, mopped the bathroom floor from accidents 3 times, Changed at least 12 diapers before 5pm, made 3 meals, and taken care of any of my children's needs. With having to clean each room so many times it doesn't leave a lot of time to school my children, or read to them, or teach them things, and that is where the guilt comes in.
So I've made a few goals for myself that I've been working on. #1 every morning while they watch their morning cartoons and drink their milk, I do a bible study, and read part of a spiritual book. #2 Empty the dishwasher every morning and load it with dishes throughout the day, my goal is for zero dishes to be in the dishwasher, then before bed i will run it and it's ready for the next morning. #3 do 1 load of laundry every day, 3 loads on Monday to keep up with the weekend #4 Do 2 worksheets with Alanah every day after lunch time #5 Read the girls the bible every day.
These goals I've made have been almost life changing! At first I felt a little frustrated because in order to do 1 load of laundry a day I had to get caught up first, same with the dishes I had to get it to where I only needed 1 load of dishes a day. This process was the most frustrating but after three weeks of working towards these goals this morning I woke up to NO dishes in the sink, one load of laundry on the floor, and TONS of time to spend teaching my children about the word of God and to do their lessons. Standing in the kitchen this morning and looking at my empty sink made me feel like I was doing something right!! It was so exciting that I had been able to accomplish this goal. It leaves so much more time to do other things that were needing to be done and so much more time for my children.
So anytime I start looking around the house at other things that are undone or not in order I just go in the kitchen and look at my sink and remind myself I accomplished that goal for the day, the other things will come along later.
The key is to not get so overwhelmed to where you feel you are going to accomplish nothing, but instead to get so excited about accomplishing those little goals that you can go onto bigger things later.
This week my goal was my home and my children and they have been accomplished, next week I'll add to it and work on being a Godly wife. Maybe work on one thing from the Psalm 31 wife, until I accomplish that one thing. However long it takes I know I will get there!
As a wife and mother, I know several other wives and mothers whose lives also get out of control, and struggle to keep up with things, and struggle to find time with God during those busy days. These are the same women (myself included) who feel so much guilt when they don't accomplish what they wanted to in one day, or a week or who feel that they are a failure because they didn't teach their child a bible lesson today or didn't get much homeschooling done with their child today, or didn't get much housework today. There is so much included in being a effective Godly wife and mother, so many expectations that we can have of ourselves and even expectations our husbands and children might have of us that it can be very overwhelming at times.
I was watching the show "hoarders" last night and one of the things that caused these women to not be able to keep up with cleaning their homes was they became so overwhelmed with looking around at all the piles and rooms full of things and trash to clean that just cleaning one corner of a room at a time for them was discouraging! They would become overwhelmed and just think "whats the use the rest of the house is dirty anyways." As women we tend to do the same thing at times, we start working on an area of our lives and then look around at all the work that is left to do and we think "whats the use!" And that is what we need to stop doing!
We need to start focusing on one area of our lives, our house, & our children's lives at a time and not look up until we have accomplished our goal. It's when we start looking around at all the other things we want to accomplish, and we stop looking at what we already have accomplished that we get side tracked and fall apart.
This week for me has been HUGE! I had been feeling pretty overwhelmed by housework, in a days time I will have done at least 4 loads of laundry, two-three loads of dishes, cleaned the living room at least 5 times, vacuumed 3 times, picked up toys 10 times, mopped the bathroom floor from accidents 3 times, Changed at least 12 diapers before 5pm, made 3 meals, and taken care of any of my children's needs. With having to clean each room so many times it doesn't leave a lot of time to school my children, or read to them, or teach them things, and that is where the guilt comes in.
So I've made a few goals for myself that I've been working on. #1 every morning while they watch their morning cartoons and drink their milk, I do a bible study, and read part of a spiritual book. #2 Empty the dishwasher every morning and load it with dishes throughout the day, my goal is for zero dishes to be in the dishwasher, then before bed i will run it and it's ready for the next morning. #3 do 1 load of laundry every day, 3 loads on Monday to keep up with the weekend #4 Do 2 worksheets with Alanah every day after lunch time #5 Read the girls the bible every day.
These goals I've made have been almost life changing! At first I felt a little frustrated because in order to do 1 load of laundry a day I had to get caught up first, same with the dishes I had to get it to where I only needed 1 load of dishes a day. This process was the most frustrating but after three weeks of working towards these goals this morning I woke up to NO dishes in the sink, one load of laundry on the floor, and TONS of time to spend teaching my children about the word of God and to do their lessons. Standing in the kitchen this morning and looking at my empty sink made me feel like I was doing something right!! It was so exciting that I had been able to accomplish this goal. It leaves so much more time to do other things that were needing to be done and so much more time for my children.
So anytime I start looking around the house at other things that are undone or not in order I just go in the kitchen and look at my sink and remind myself I accomplished that goal for the day, the other things will come along later.
The key is to not get so overwhelmed to where you feel you are going to accomplish nothing, but instead to get so excited about accomplishing those little goals that you can go onto bigger things later.
This week my goal was my home and my children and they have been accomplished, next week I'll add to it and work on being a Godly wife. Maybe work on one thing from the Psalm 31 wife, until I accomplish that one thing. However long it takes I know I will get there!
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