Live, Live, LIVE Life out

This afternoon is sort of cloudy with patches of sunshine peeking through and as I sit at my computer listening to the girls make up a sack lunch to take to the back of the property to the boys who are busy building another fort creation I'm reminded of something.  Love life.  Live life.  Go outside.  Smell the air.  Run in the leaves.  Play with your kids.  Eat the whole batch of cookies by yourself.  Be yourself.  Live for God first and for the approval of others never.  Do say I love you all day long.  Don't let these moments of time be just that.  I get caught up in how fast life is going by but then I remember..it's ok, I still have eternity with them.  We can just enjoy this for what this is right now.  I think I'll get off this thing, grab a cup of coffee, and go see what this new fort looks like=)

This Momma Thing

Ok so here we are...smack dab in the middle of teenage years and I'm thinking..."Where was I when this happened?"  Despite all of the obvious feelings of feeling old or not old enough to have teenagers, wishing I had more time with them, wanting them to be those sweet little ones I remember...I'm trying to be not only ok with this season in life but rejoice in it.  God is working in this house I tell ya.  He is cleaning out the closets, breaking chains, dismissing all pride and just molding us through all of this life stuff.  So much of what I want gets me falling back to old habits of do this, and do that to be just right.  No.  We will live according to His laws but we WILL live rejoicing in His mercy, grace, and redemption that was accomplished on the cross!  These kids are finding themselves.  They are trying to figure this thing out too.  Oh how I want to be a balanced example of what they should strive for.  But when I'm not, when I fall short...I want to be continuously pointing them to the One who will not and does not ever.  I am reminded and encouraged that so many of us mommas want the same thing.  Have the same struggles.  Really are living out this walk as I am and are not a perfect picture of what we all want to be.  I need Jesus.  Daily.  My verse this week: "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:"-Philippians 1:6 

God is faithful even when we are not

I have been discovering quite a bit about myself lately.  I've found :  I'm selfish.  I have little patience.  I am not as grounded in my faith as I thought I was.  I am reliant on other people.  I complain too much.  I ask for God's help too little.  I am inconsistent in many areas of my life.  I am nit picky.  I judge others.  And of course, I am too hard on myself from time to time.  I hate to be wrong.  And the list is still growing.  My faults.  They are many.  And quite a few of them I thought I had conquered or overcome.  Or maybe I had through His great mercy and grace but then decided to take back the wheel and crashed and burned again, and am now back to my starting point.  God is good.  He's teaching me again.  He's showing the way.  So many times we hear the words and the sermons and believe we are living them out but in all actuality we are just going through the motions and "doing" the right things but not asking Him to do them through us.  If it is just an act of obeying the law and not surrendering to Him, the One who makes all things possible we will just strive to do our best and fail eventually.  I believe that is why Christians get so frustrated.  We want so desperately to do what God has laid on our heart to do but rely on our own strength and ability to do it.  It's as if we pray for God's help in our lives and then forget we even prayed for it when the test is at hand.  It comes back to the joy of the Lord.  Joy to renew our strength.  We will not forget that the Lord is our only source of true strength if we do not forget the price that He paid for our victory.  And we can rejoice in Him daily for what He has done and is doing in us!   

Making The Grade

I remember being 13.  It was time to shop for school clothes.  I had gone from a size 7 to a size 9 over my 7th grade summer.  In my mind I was just getting older and growing.  I didn't look at my friends and wonder what size they were.  I didn't care that my jeans were a size up.  Something changed for me that year.  I got a taste of the world and what it expected from me.  I became more and more aware of the chatter around me.  The, "I'm fat" comments.  I soon felt the pressure too.  What a girl will put herself through to feel good enough is horrifying.  Why do we as women feel these pressures.  It travels into adulthood.  We need to be the good mother, good wife, good friend, good Christian.  And it seems we are seeking approval from this outside world while torturing ourselves.  I am not saying that we should not strive to be good in all of these areas.  I WANT to be a good mother,wife, and Christian.  But I don't want to rely on others to tell me or give me their approval when I've met or not met the so called standard. Our focus needs to be on the expectations of God and not man.  When we are led by the Spirit we will know God's will but when we let our own desires, the desires of others, and dysfunctions lead us we are lead to believe what the world would like us to.  God made us in His image.  Why then is it so hard to convince girls these days that they are beautiful?  That they are made specifically by a loving Father who wanted them to be exactly as they are?  I believe it is a distorted thought process that can only be reversed by the Creator who first formed us in His hands.  He is the only One who can pull these girls out of the superficial world that places all of their hopes and dreams on what their outward beauty can offer.  A world that is only surface deep and never seeks the innermost parts of the soul.  God has spoken.  He has said that, ..."The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."-1 Sam 16:7  "Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."-Proverbs 31:30  The Lord wants us to know His value on outward beauty.  He puts very little stock in that which fades and soon will be gone.  So while the world is telling us the next best way to stay young and preserve our outward beauty, the Lord is telling us how to preserve our inward beauty and soul so that we may live forever with Him in the kingdom of Heaven.   It is a battle that I believe we will continue to struggle with as women.   Looking for the balance of raising girls to be ladies without putting too much pressure on them to be what the world thinks they should be.  And it really doesn't matter how many magazines we shelter them from or if we homeschool them and keep them in church.  They will still learn the majority of their principles from their number one example.  Us.  Their mothers.  The same women who have struggled with these issues growing up.  The same women who still may wrestle with these issues in our adult lives.  I urge you to take them to the cross.  To let Jesus heal you once and for all and to be able to see yourself as He does.  A child of God who is fearfully and wonderfully made.  Beautiful in His sight. 

The Walk I'm On

No excuses.  Blogging has not been at the forefront of my priorities.  Well it never really is.  So if you are one of my few followers you have probably figured it out by now that I am not a daily blogging kind of gal.  Shoot, I'm not really even a monthly blogging kind of gal!  I do aim to do better.  For my own records that is=)  After all, that is what my objective was in starting this whole thing.  A journal of sorts.  Documenting life, faith, raising kiddos, etc....  It's been an interesting  past few months.  There was the church shopping.  Highly recommended if you need some variety in your life or maybe just a good laugh.  No, really though.  It was hard and I'm still not completely sure we've found the right fit but it fits right now and that's enough.  We get in such ruts I think.  Of how church should or should not be.  What suits us and what doesn't.  I think those things can be fine in moderation as long as they do not get in the way of the real reason we have church.  To meet with God and seek His presence.  I've found that good deeds and godly works can be confused with spiritual wholeness.  But most of all I think I've found that as humans we are drawn to rely on other humans.  As Christians we are drawn to rely on other Christians.  And while that is all well and good, it gets dangerous when we begin to rely on other Christians before we rely on God.  When we are more willing to put our trust in them than fall blindly into God's open embrace.  Now don't get me wrong, we need fellow Christians to confide in, to fellowship with, to hold each other accountable.  But I think I've found that it is very easy to put God on the back burner or as co-counsel to the safer route.  I know God has been teaching me the lesson to look to Him first, for all of my life.  Sometimes I win the test and other times I find myself looking back and wondering why I took the long road.  And sometimes I don't even realize I'm on the long road.  Seasons.  So many different seasons in this walk of faith.  This season feels like the weather in Texas lately.  I think it's time for the rain.

It Only Takes One

It only takes one person to change another persons destiny.  It only takes one person, listening for the sound of God's voice, to speak out to a hurting soul.  It only takes one person to break the patterns and change the course of a family's history.  It only takes one person to remember where God brought them from and tell someone else.  It only takes one person to look up at Jesus  rather than look down on a sinner.  It only takes one person, and God knows exactly the person who can bring His truth to each and every lost soul.  That person is you...if you listen He will show you the faces of the lost.  Every heart has a different voice, a different way of responding to another heart.  But God's heart contains the yearnings of every heart.  It is not within us that the lost are reached, it is within Him.  Thank you Lord for showing me Your great love and mercy continually.

Precious Pictures From a Dear Sisterfriend (Yes, that is one word in my book)

I met Janea almost five years ago and she has become one of the best friends God has ever sent my way.  I can't help but brag on her photography.  It has been something I've watched grow from an interest to an amazing talent that I know brings joy to many.  I'm including her link for those of you who might want to see more of what she does.  I know, it's a shameless plug but I promise she didn't ask me to advertise=) http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1977515843932&set=a.1965108773763.120680.1424198580&type=1&ref=notif&notif_t=like&theater#!/pages/Lani-Janea-Photography/116203365127218