Rough Week?

I prayed I could post, "Thank you for praying for me and my daughter ("bear").  Everything is great now." (You may need to read my last post if you have no idea what I'm talking about).  Well, not yet.  Maybe tomorrow.  Please keep praying.  But in the midst of chaos, God reminded me of a few thoughts about trials for followers of Jesus.

1)       Recall God’s faithfulness to Hold. 

God is always with you.  And like a parent comforting a hurting child, He holds us through the tough times.   Psalm 23:4 says, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”  (emphasis mine)

2)       Rely on God’s faithfulness to Help.

God wants us to call to Him for help.  I love the promise of Psalm 46:1.  “God is our refuge and strength,
A very present help in trouble.” (emphasis mine)

3)      Rejoice in God’s faithfulness to Hope

God wants us to rejoice.  Rejoice.  Really?  Paul says in Philippians 4:4 “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!”  I think Paul knew what he was talking about when he wrote this from prison.  Paul also gave us the “how to hope” later in verses 6-7.

  “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.   And the peace of God, which surpasses all, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

May God grow us all in our trials this week.

Forgiveness in the Car Line

Dear elementary car line participants,

I sincerely apologize for holding up the drop off line Friday morning.  I hope you understand my embarrasement.  Actually I hope you never have to empathize with the drama that unfolded.  What you did see...a wild, out of control mom, with a strong-willed child, refusing to walk into school.  What you did not see...the hour and half battle that began when the weary, eight-year-old "bear", surfaced out of her cave that morning.  She decided she did not want anyone to look at her, sit by her, or breathe on her.  During "Hot Chocolate and Holy Word" time, we (other girls and I) laughed about needing a "reverse" miracle.  Instead of wine, Jesus needed to change "the bear's" (and now mine) "whine" into water.  "The bear" just growled.  I tried to make her laugh with no avail.  I remained in control with twenty minutes of choosing a shirt to wear, twenty minutes of deciding what to eat for breakfast, and making everyone late for school.     

Now that you get a picture of what you did not see, does that justify my anger with my daughter?  No.  I get so frustrated when I can't remain calm and spirit- controlled.  Instead, self takes over and results in scenes I wish I could erase.  I had to apologize to my daughter for losing my temper (again).  I had to ask God to forgive my crazed reaction (again).  I also asked God for wisdom, which he promises to give freely to believers that ask.  I told my Moms in Prayer group, that met thirty minutes later, about the incident and asked them to pray.  Even today, a friend at church said, "I saw you in the drop off line Friday.  I prayed for you." My first thought, a sarcastic "Nice".

Don't you hate it when people see you "walking in the flesh" in public?  It ruins our "Sunday masked, perfect" image we hope everyone notices.  Or does it show that we need a Savior, a life-changer, a Holy Spirit to control us?

When sharing with others, don't wear your mask.  It's ok to share the ugly side that we are not proud of, but trying to overcome with Christ's help.  It shows others three sides of us.

1) We are "real".  We deal with the same issues other people deal with.  We are not perfect people, just people saved by grace, striving to become more like Christ.

2) We are "repentent".  We need God's forgiveness and CHANGE.

3) We are "reliant".  We NEED the Holy Spirit, the person of God living in us, to live our lives.  

Do you need forgiveness in the car line?  Do you need to take off your "perfect" mask?  Do you need a change, forgiveness, that only Christ can give?

Just Start Counting

Ever want to begin something new, but want to wait for the perfect time to start?  For example, you want to start a diet, but you decide to wait until after Christmas (even if its October).  Or you want to be more consistent in your spiritual life, but you wait until the New Year to start again.  You want to pursue a dream, but you need to wait for more time, or more money, or more energy.  It's almost February.  Like me, you might have intended to start something new in January, and have yet to start. Well, just start.  Don't even wait until February first for a new month.  We aren't promised tomorrow.

James 4:14  Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

So, here goes.  I want to be more thankful.  I'm reading Ann Voskamp's book, one thousand gifts.  I highly recommend the book, even though I'm only half way finished.  I also enjoy her blog http://aholyexperience.com/.  She's challenged me to look at life differently, not missing the blessings of the moment.  So right now, I will begin counting the one thousand gifts, one at a time.  I'm not going to worry if I miss a day or two, or even a week.  Stacy, just start counting...

1) the quietness of the house with all the girls snug in bed and Robb running
2) holding a friend's two week old baby, a miracle (and giving him back)
3) parents dropping in for a sorta planned visit at dinner time and having enough food to share
4) husband that likes to cook and recreates my dinner for #3
5) cup of  hot Chai Latte
6) early bedtime (exhausted)

What do you need to begin?  Do you need to just start counting?

Potholes of Fear

I'm sure you are like me and your first thoughts of the day were about potholes.  OK, maybe not. (Hopefully not).  I can justify my madness, unlike other times.  I spoke about fear, to some wonderful, Jesus following, ladies at a retreat today.  The title of my session was, "Avoiding the Potholes of Fear" to go along with the theme "Life's a Trip."  I pondered on my notes one more time this morning and thoughts began to spill.

I remember driving my first car, a blue 1988 Suzuki Samurai (no a/c because what sixteen-year-old needs a/c in small town Oklahoma where you drive less than one mile to church and school and only three miles to work?  Only God knew that I'd drive that way until I got married at age twenty-five) down backroads in a miserably hot summer (no a/c remember), in smaller rural Oklahoma for my summer college job at a bank.  I don't believe anyone took responsibility for road maintenance.  The roads, heavily traveled by combines, semi-trucks, and local pickups remotely looked like pavement, resembling more of a battle field of potholes, better described as craters.  I thought about how potholes can represent fear, especially unwarranted, "what ifs" fear.

1)  Like potholes, fear causes damage.

Potholes can cause serious damage to your vehicle: changing alignment, bursting tires, scraping who knows what under your car, and can even cause you to wreck.  Fear also changes our "alignment with God".  It changes our focus from Jesus to us and our fears.  It may cause us to veer off the road God wants us to travel.    

2)  Like potholes, fear causes detours.

Potholes get bigger with time, overtaking pavement if not filled.  Eventually (unless in rural Oklahoma), the road temporarily closes for repair, resulting in detours.  People cannot use the road, the purpose for which it was made.  Our fear can grow if not properly assessed and diverted.  Our lives, wrecked by fear, hold a "temporarily closed" sign that God cannot use us as He desires.

3)  Like potholes, fear causes deceleration.
Potholes require us to slow down and concentrate on the potholes, rather than the road.  Fear causes us to slow down in our spiritual growth.  

4)  Like potholes, fear causes us to be desensitized.

After a while, the road of potholes no longer require our full attention.  We drive comfortably on the rugged road, knowing exactly where to swerve and accepting the fact that the maintenance crew may never repair the road.  With fear, we desensitize to its presence in our lives.  We wrongly concede to time-wasting, peaceless fear, believing the lie that fear does not affect us enough to care.  And honestly, may not care to change because we live contently with our fear, unable to imagine life any differently.

God desires us to live in freedom from fear, filling our frightening potholes of fear with faith.  The Bible teaches us how to overcome fear, beginning with personally knowing the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

What do you fear?  Are you tired of it yet?

Wrecked Again? Fear Again?

God continues to let me work on my fear issue.  “But, I thought we were done with that, Lord?”   

My well broken-in, kid living, mom mobile golden van got hit again.  This time, the new damage happened while parked in the street in front of a friend’s house.  Unfortunately, the sliding door got smashed, missing my “deer” ding just a couple of feet away.  My van has had its share of body work, two visits to the shop in the last four months.  First: Driver side bumper rearranged from a hit and run.  Second, driver side spoiler fell off, my fault (really ought to write a blog on that one J).  (Oh no, I shared too much.  Now you won’t want to buy my van!)   I finally got an estimate from the insurance company yesterday.  I shared my fear with her.  “What if the door doesn’t operate correctly months from now?”  Her response, “Well it works now.  We can only fix the damaged body work.” 

God reminds me not to worry about the “what’ifs”.  But I’m so good at the “what ifs”.  What if I find out my husband is in a car wreck?  What if my children have a deadly disease I don’t know about?  What if my house burns down?   What if…  Sadly, I usually don’t stop with the “what if”.  I then dwell on the terrible consequences, as if my “what if” were true.  God speaks to me and says,

“So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own.”  (Matthew 6:34)
How?  The verse right before this one, gives us the answer.  Matthew 6:33   says, “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (emphasis mine).


This is just one step God continues to teach me to overcome unwarranted fear.  Check back, I’m sure I will share the other two steps sometime.  I’m sharing this at a ladies’ retreat next week (I don’t want to give all my points away J).  (Wish I could only use “old” material, as if I’m fear- free now).

 (I'm still having problems downloading pics to my blog.  So, you will just have to imagine my dented van.)   

The Clean Up

I’m sure some of you are wondering how to clean up a pond of liquid detergent.  I’m sorry to say (and happy to say) I’ve got experience in this.  I failed to tell you in my last blog that this happened one other time (slow learner, I know).  It happened about five years ago.  My initial response: “Are you kidding me!”  Of course five years ago, I had three little girls (ages 5, 3, and 1) helping me with the clean up.  I did the best I could to return the liquid to its original container and then made the biggest mistake of my life (I wish this was the biggest mistake of my life).  I added water.  Do you know what water does to a pond of detergent?  Of course you do.  What was I thinking!

The next day sitting at the breakfast table with my girls, I hear a “Pfsssss” coming from my utility room.  That is never a good sound.  I ran to see what was going on.  To my surprise a plastic two liter of Coke had spontaneously busted.  Really?  Didn’t know that could happen.  I had to laugh, or I would cry. (Maybe I did cry first).  One day after cleaning bubbles!  Can you believe it?  The Coke wiped right up!  The thin layer of detergent left the day before, neutralized the stickiness.

So, my clean up this time:  Used my hands to get most of the liquid back into the container, wiped the floor with paper towels, and then, yes, I used  7up to neutralize the slick film of soap left behind.

My thoughts:  Sometimes God gives us (followers of Jesus) trials to prepare us for the next.   God prepared my floor with soap, knowing the Coke would come the next day.  Some of our “little trials” are preparing us for others, and sometimes bigger trials.  I know you’re asking, “And that is supposed to encourage me?”   Depends on how you look at it.  Now that I’ve had a trial of spilled soap twice, I thought of some conclusions about trials.

God uses trials for us to:

1)       Prepare us to Remember.

 Remember the times God has been faithful in the past.  Write it down.  Because of His faithfulness in other trials, we can trust Him now. 

Psalm 36:5 says, “Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens,
Your faithfulness reaches to the skies.”

Also, remember the trials you “passed” and take good notes.   Remember the trials you “failed” and learn from them (Do not add water to soap!).  It’s ok to share how you’ve failed.  It also shows you are “real”.

2)       Prepare us to Relate.

God sometimes uses our trials to allow us to relate to others that have gone through a similar test.   God uses our stories to create bridges to share hope.  Hopefully, we learn from our trials and can encourage others.   

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort,  who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

3)       Prepare us for Reward.

For those who are followers of Christ, earth is not our home.  God is in the process of refining us for heaven (not that we have to earn our way).  He uses every trial to make us more like Christ (if we will let Him). 

Philippians 1:6 says, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

It’s taken me a few days to get this post together.  The day after my clean up, my van was hit (no one in it, thankfully), and I struggled with a strong willed child at school, resulting in school counselor intervention.  God’s given me plenty of opportunities to practice these scriptures J.

What Determines a Good Day?

What determines a good day?

My thoughts spill from cleaning up a puddle pond of liquid detergent in my laundry room.  Somehow the full ,new, “money saving” 150 fluid ounce bottle tumbled off my dryer leaving a fun-filled afternoon.  OK, it wasn’t fun, but it was my “spilling ground” today (thoughts and literally). When my husband asks me “How was your day?” how will I respond?  Will I start complaining about the difficulty I had with one of my daughters getting to school (tummy ache with no fever finally getting to school at 10:30 a.m.), the change in MY schedule today because of it, and my fun-filled clean up (I won’t have to start with it because I’m venting on my blog J).  But transparently, it’s easy to start complaining about everything that went wrong in a day.  What about the good in my day (spending time with the girls at lunch time, eating lunch with a good friend, my whole house smells clean from the spilled laundry detergent J)?

Face it.  Every day is full of unexpected circumstances.  We have OUR plans, but only occasionally have a day as “planned” (I’m not sure I’ve ever had a day “as planned”).  So how do you determine a good day?  If there are no surprises in YOUR schedule?  If everyone in your family is well?  If you have money in the bank account and money to plan your next vacation?  If your boss notices your hard work?  If the weather is nice?  If the traffic is flowing?  If your children obey and get along?  Does answering yes to ALL of these make it a good day? No vomit? No fire? No blood?  IF, IF, IF. IF everything has to go perfectly and as you planned, you will never have a good day. 

My conclusion: I want to determine my day by my response to the day and not the circumstances.  I’m working on this.  I have many examples of what not to do (an impatient driver’s license picture that I’m glad I finally replaced).   Did I respond with patience to the driver that cut me off?  Respond with love to the rude cashier?  Respond with faith when I get the “bad news” over the phone?  Did I respond with joy when there are suds everywhere?  (I really wished I used “Cheer” detergent)

James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

How was your day?

(I tried to upload a pic of my disaster.  Of course, it didn't work the four times I tried. :)  Maybe tomorrow.)

Happy "New" Year!

Happy New Year 2012!

Don’t you just love the word “new”?   I’ve been thinking about this word for a week now.  With Christmas only a week ago, “new” describes many gifts we unwrapped.  Actually, all the gifts we received were new.  (For the first year, it didn’t take hours to untangle toys from new boxes for the girls).

I also thought of the word “new” when I polished my kitchen cabinets with orange oil to cover the scratches a few days ago.   While I worked, I thought about my relationship with God. 

When I trusted Jesus to make something new of my life that is what He did.  The word of God says,  “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a NEW life has begun!”  (2 Corinthians 5:17 New Living Translation (NLT), emphasis mine)  God doesn’t just promise to change our lives (even though we change with newness), but promises NEW life.  He doesn’t just come and cover our old “scratches” and imperfections like I did with my cabinets.  He remodels.  He tears out and starts over.  He gives us new thoughts, new priorities, and new purpose. 

God wants us to live NEW in three ways.

#1 Leave the old.

Like Paul’s struggle between his old nature before Christ and new nature in Christ, (described in Romans 7 of the New Testament;  there is the word “new” again), I struggle with my old life of sin versus my new life of freedom from sin.  Does that mean if I sin, I am not NEW anymore?  No.  New does not equal perfection.  But our new life IN Christ gives us the desire and power to say no to sin and self.

Romans 6:6-8 (NLT) says, “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. ⁷ For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin. ⁸ And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.” 

1 Corinthians 10:13 (NLT) says, “The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

Live the new by leaving the old.

#2 Put on the new.

Even though we are “new”, we must choose to put on the new.  Colossians 3:1-2 says that since you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.  And later, in that same chapter, verses 12-14 say that as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, we are to clothe ourselves with (put on) compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³ Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴ And over all these virtues, put on love which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Choose to put on the new.

#3 Live the change.

Remember, God does the work.  Sometimes I act like it is my job to “look good”.  Do good works to “oil my own cabinets”.  Look good. Smell good (orange oil smells good for only a short while, then it disappears).  But really God sees my scratches, my sin (my way instead of God’s).  God wants me to rest in Him and He will display my “newness”.

Are you tired of the “old, beat-up cabinets” of your life?  You, too, can have NEW “cabinets” through Jesus.

Leave the old. Put on the new. Live the change in 2012.