To Live the Width of Our Life

From a Mother's Heart to Her Daughters...







Dear Daughters,
Today our hearts are heavy again, grieving for a life ended by cancer at an age too young. You knew her, you went to school together. Cancer doesn't care who it chooses but this classmate of yours fought it hard. Kori may have only live a few short years-20 was it? But she lived it wildly doing more than most of us do in our lifetime. Amazing.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/i-ROK-Foundation/105602206152241

The length of her days may have been shorten in our view but she live the width of those days. She lived well. Can we say that? Her testimony was about serving and loving loud and Jesus was spoken in her actions and in her words.

Girls, our hearts breaks for her family in this loss but our faith should help us celebrate her life. May her legacy motivate us all to not just live the length of our day but the width of our days. May Kori's testimony spur us to live loudly and to cling to Jesus.

Reach out to others girls. Serve fervently. Find your purpose and live each day with all you got!!

Snake Eggs in Your Head

From a Mother's Heart to Her Daughters






Girls, the next 5 words may be the wisest words I could pass on to you. I ashamedly know these words all too well...

Every Sin Begins With a Thought.

Jentezen Franklin has really nailed this thought in his book "The Spirit of Python: Exposing Satan's Plan to Squeeze the Life out of You".  That's what sin does...it takes parts of your life away from you, it can even take your life.

Satan has been referenced as a snake in the Bible. In Genesis, the serpent (satan) persuaded Eve to sin and satan is no different today. As a snake lays eggs to hatch more of its kind, so too does satan lay eggs in our life to keep us from what God created us to do. Whether though another person, media, music or whatever, we see, we like, we want. Sometimes this can be used to produce good in our life. Sometimes it only produces something bad in our life.

Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. ~ James 1:15

The greatest battle for your soul is not the war going on between angels and demons; it is the war going on between your ears. The battle  starts with how you think and the "snake eggs" you allow the enemy to lay in your head." ~Jentezen Franklin, The Spirit of Python

What you allow your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your mouth to speak effects your being. It effects your atmosphere. It flows into your living.

The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. ~ Luke 6:35 (RSV)

We allow images or thoughts to take over our mind because we think it will make us happy or fulfill a desire. The constant thinking on these things, be it good or bad, will eventually work its way into our heart.

The eye is a light for the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. ²³ But if your eyes are evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. And if the only light you have is really darkness, then you have the worst darkness. ~ Matt 6:22-23 (NCV)

Eventually these images or thoughts becomes an action. Satan can convince you that it (the imagine or the thought) is good for you. Maybe its the thought of a relationship with someone, a party to go to, whatever it is, the more you think about it, the more satan will feed into it if it is wrong for you.

The weapons of the war we’re fighting are not of this world but are powered by God and effective at tearing down the strongholds erected against His truth. ⁵ We are demolishing arguments and ideas, every high-and-mighty philosophy that pits itself against the knowledge of the one true God. We are taking prisoners of every thought, every emotion, and subduing them into obedience to the Anointed One.  ~ 2 Cor 10:4-5 (The Voice)

You have to make it a habit to measure your thoughts against Christ or his Word to know if it is something you should allow into your life. You can't control every thought that comes into your mind but you can control how long you dwell on it.

Don't let stans eggs be planted!! Don't let the things of this world influence you away from the things of God. In his book, Jentezen reminds us that the devil works like a python to restrict your growth and limit your influence. When a python squeezes its victim, not only does the breath stop but its movement is also completely restricted

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. ~ Proverbs 4:23 (NIV)

Anchor your heart and your mind in Christ. It is your only protection against the python!

I love you!!

No Resolutions, Just a Revolution

From a Mother's heart to Her Daughters...






Dear girls,
A new year quickly approaches and many people will make a fresh start, claim new year resolutions, and hope for something better. I heard a pastor James Merritt (from Touching Lives.org) this morning speak to this and he gave us a much better approach to this new year...

"No resolutions-just a revolution"

 Drawing from Philippians chapter 3, pastor Merritt laid out a practice I am well familiar with. and I share it with you here. This is so vitally important to life and I have practice it for years. I haven't been perfect in the process but it has grown me into a better person and I have bloomed in my spiritual life and closeness with our God. You can too.

Read the following passage and read the three steps I encourage you to take in your own life:

¹² Not that I have already reached the goal or am already fully mature, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. ¹³ Brothers, I do not^[c] consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, ¹⁴ I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly^[d] call in Christ Jesus. (HCSB)

Forget what's behind (Phil 3:13b).  Where you have been is only important in how it has gotten you to where you are now. Look at what you have become. you can't forget your past but it can influence you. only allow your past to influence you in a positive way-what can you learn from your past? How can it grow you? You know you have learned from your pass wen you can talk about it.

¹² I don’t mean to say I am perfect. I haven’t learned all I should even yet, but I keep working toward that day when I will finally be all that Christ saved me for and wants me to be.

¹³ No, dear brothers, I am still not all I should be, but I am bringing all my energies to bear on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, ¹⁴ I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for which God is calling us up to heaven because of what Christ Jesus did for us. (Living Bible)

 

 

Focus on one thing (Phil 3: 13& 14). Focus on what God as for you in today and the days to come. What one thing can you focus on for this new year? For me, it how I can be more anchored in Christ as I wrote about in the last post. Ask yourself "what goal would God have for you in this new year?" Pray about it. Diligently pray about it. Be in God's Word daily. The greatest thing you can do on a daily basis is to seek Him and hear from

 

¹² Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own, that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.

¹³ I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,

¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. (Amplified)

 

 

Press on (Phil 3:12 & 14). Fulfill what is ahead of you. Live each day surrendered to Jesus, honoring Him with  your thoughts, your words, your living. Our life was given to us by God for an eternal purpose. What is your eternal purpose? What has God created you to do with your life for Him, for eternity's influence?

Don't make resolutions for the new year. Resolutions are too easily broken. Make this new year a revolution! Make God your first focus of each day-the anchor of your living. Change. Grow. Bloom.

I love you!!

Anchored

From a Mother's Heart to Her Daughters...







Hey girls, we are closing out another year.  It's a year I would freely give back, to live differently in so many ways. And now I am looking ahead as I always do, searching for a spiritual focus for the new year ahead of us. A focus that will make me a better mother for you, a better wife for Joe, and a better maidservant for God. I think I have found that focus within two words this year...

Enough & Anchored

Our days of 2013 and the word Enough have produced for me the word Anchored for 2014.  Enough comes from walking through these days in 2013. Anchored is the action to turn 2013's enough into a healthy Enough in 2014. Hang with me here...let me explain....

Enough

I don't want my enough from 2103 to mean "I have had enough"...God knows I feel that way in work, in our home, and with our losses this year. I'm sure you do too. This enough has caused me to lose my spiritual footing in each of these areas. No, I want enough to represent a different type of Enough.

Enough

Like Phillip said to Jesus, this too is where my heart and my mind have settled...

“Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.” (HCSB)

I need for God to be enough. We need for God to be enough.

It requires an attitude shift. It has to be a longing of the heart and of the mind combined. 2013 was not a year to keep for the most part. I would like to erase parts of it completely but instead, it has pointed my heart and mind to my need for more of God in my life, more reliance on Him, more dependence on Him, more resting in Him...

As a family we need to make God our enough, grasping to His truth more and embracing His peace that surpasses all understanding.

Enough.  More of God, less of me. More of God, less of you. How? Here is where the birth of my word, our word for 2014 comes into play....the action of our enough:

Anchored

God the anchor of our 2014. The assurance of His presence in our life. The steadfast embrace of His leading. Anchoring us to what matters most. Keeping us on course for His eternal plan with our lives. Praying more. Savoring His Word and applying it to our living. Being Jesus to others.

This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain into God’s inner sanctuary. ~ Hebrews 6:19

2013 threw some pretty tough storms our way. Some days I fell into the arms of God, other days I withdrew into my own emotions of the pain and my feet failed to take me where my Comforter was waiting. My faith weakened in my pain when it should have grown stronger in His grace. Instead of calling upon God's name in our losses, I allowed the waves of grief to flood over me and I missed His rest. I did not mirror to you a life that trusted in God's timing and accepted His plans. Forgive me girls.

Forgive me Abba.

I need more of God in 2014. We need more of God in 2014. So I pray these words from the song below and I pray it also becomes the prayer of your heart.

Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
I am Yours, and You are mine 

Oceans by Hillsong



I love you girls. More than ever I want to radiate God for you in 2014. To lead you closer to the Anchor of our souls. You are His and He is yours.

Living through Grief

From a Mother's Heart to her Daughters






Dear Girls,

Grief seems to be our main "something" these days. Losing two grandfathers in 5 months is difficult. No, it is more than difficult, it's painful! One grandfather fought death to the end, the other peacefully gave in to it. One death unexpected, the other expected. Both a man after God's own heart. How lucky we are to have had them in our lives.

Disease is like a sin. It can creep up on us and suddenly attack and destroy like the unknown virus your Grandpa Durnell had. Or it can come to you almost innocently and hide itself in your soul and quietly erode at your core until it can take over like the heart failure and COPD your Grandpa Arnold died from. But no matter the grip of sin in our life, we ultimately have the final control over it if we have God on our side.

Death did not kill or destroy your grandfathers. Death was only the means for them to enter into eternity where they are promised that perfection of living with their Jesus in a new world and in a new body. A promise they have always since that first time when they called on God and said "I believe. I want you in my life". Sin and death can take away our earthly body but it cannot take away our eternal body.

But death leaves us with grief. There is such a sadness and void in our hearts and in our minds. Yesterday my morning devotion took me to the story of where Jesus was praying on the Mount of Olives right before he was to be taken captive and crucified on the cross of Calvary. Remember that story? Remember how Jesus was praying and he would come to the disciples to ask for their support and each time he did they were sleeping? Well, I read Luke's version of the event and Luke cast a new light on it for me in this season of our grief. Read it...

³⁹ Jesus went out as usual to the Mount of Olives, and his disciples followed him. ⁴⁰ On reaching the place, he said to them, “Pray that you will not fall into temptation.” ⁴¹ He withdrew about a stone’s throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed, ⁴² “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” ⁴³ An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. ⁴⁴ And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.

⁴⁵ When he rose from prayer and went back to the disciples, he found them asleep, exhausted from sorrow. ⁴⁶ “Why are you sleeping?” he asked them. “Get up and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.” (Luke 22-NIV)

Did you catch why the disciples were sleeping? They were exhausted from sorrow. Jesus had warned them that they were losing Him, their friend, their mentor, someone they loved very much. It was so painful to them that it stressed them to the point of mental, physical, and spiritual exhaustion. Their mind could not comprehend why death had to happen. Their bodies were drained of any strength from the sadness and depression of this loss. Spiritually they could not even pray.

Death does the same thing to us today...if we let it. As I have walked away from the death of my most precious father and your grandfather, I experienced all three of those effects. Mentally and physically I withdrew. It has been hard to formally pray but I determined to keep talking to God, to keep in His Word knowing it would carry me though. Losing my precious father-in-law is no different so I am even more determined to talk to God and allow Him to carry me through this. In that determination I still grief but that grief is met with a peace that can only come from God.

Your grandfathers would want you to do the same. Jesus was important to them. They sought God in their living and they pass that legacy down to you. Embrace that legacy. It will get you through the toughest of times. I know. I want you to know this. Experience this.

Your Life is Like a Leaf....

From a Mother's Heart to Her Daughters







Dear girls,

 

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven...~Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NKJV)

 This week I am in Michigan as I begin this post. It's Oct 1st and I have been driving North. It is such a beautiful drive. The changing colors of the leaves in red, oranges, yellows, & browns mixed in with the greens are beautiful. I was told today that the next two weeks will be the most colorful but I find this weeks canvas of fall colors just perfect. This picture from the car really doesn't do justice to what I was seeing:
 
 

 

Seasons.
 

 

Change.

Your life is like a leaf...with changing colors in seasonal adaption. Life gives us seasons of joy, of sorrow, of growth, of death. There is the season of infancy to childhood to youth to adulthood  to the advanced years of aging-each adapting and changing colors.  

With each of these season we mature. For some us we will age back into a resemblance of infancy through illness and diseases. For others life will be cut short. Seasons of color. Seasons of adaption.

We have seasons of success and seasons of failures. There may be season of sins, seasons of selfishness and there may be seasons of sacrifice, of giving, of redemption. Seasons of color. Seasons of adaption. 

All of the colors found in our life are under the watchful eye of the Eternal One. Whether we want Him to be or not, God is in control and He does have a purpose for the colors in our seasons... 

 

And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. ~ Daniel 2:21

 

Fall can have a two-fold significance. The changing colors can represent hope or the changing colors can represent impending death and loss. But without the hope, without the loss there would be no re-birth, there would be no growth.  

The trees lose their leaves and go dormant for a season only to be rebirth to even bigger foliage in the next season.  Spiritually we can be like the leaf with seasons of colors, seasons of dormancy, seasons of change, seasons of rebirth and growth. What your mother has learned is that it all means nothing unless I keep focused on God. 

 

You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You. ~ Isa 26:3 (Amplified)

 

No season is beyond what we can endure. In the good times and in the bad, there is always a hope that can bring us through and it only comes from looking to God.

 

[God's] hope is real and true, an anchor to steady our restless souls, a hope that leads us back behind the curtain to where God is... ~ Heb 6:19 (The Voice)

 

So no matter what season you are in, no matter the color of your life, take it to God. Praise Him no matter how hard it gets. In the end you will find peace.

 

Trust in, lean on, rely on, and have confidence in Him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts before Him. God is a refuge for us (a fortress and a high tower). Selah ~ Ps 62:8 (Amplified)

 

God is our safe place. Many times in my difficulties, in my grief, I wish I had gone to Him sooner. For when I did, I was able to experience that peace that surpasses all understanding (Phil 4:7). I want that for you.

 

 

When He Reached Down His Hand for Me

From a Mothers Heart to her Daughters....

Dear girls,

This morning as I was listening to a minister on TV and he mentioned this hymn. Though I grew up in the Southern Baptist church, I do not remember ever singing this song. What powerful words. Here is a modern version of it from YouTube:

When He Reached Down His Hand for Me

 

Once my soul was astray from the heavenly way

I was wretched and vile as could be

But my Savior in love, gave me peace from above

When he reached down His hand for me

When the Savior reached down for me

When he reached down His hand for me

I was lost and undone, without God or His Son

When he reached down His hand for me

I was near to despair when He came to me there

And He showed me that I could be free

Then He lifted my feet, gave me gladness complete

When He reached down His hand for me

How my heart doth rejoice when I hear His sweet voice

And the tempest to Him I can flee

There to lean on His arms, safe secure from all harm

Since he reached down his hand for me

I have not been able to find the author or the circumstances behind the writing of this song. This is what I do know....when life is crashing around you...when grief grips your every emotions...when pain suffocates you and you feel like you cannot breathe...listen to this old song. Close your eyes and allow God's Spirit to cover you. There is a transforming spirit of peace and release. I cannot explain it.

My failures in life and my losses have really weighed heavy on me this year...this summer especially. I do not know how I could breathe each day if I didn't first lean on God. No matter how bad I felt, no matter how much I wanted to give up, I have found healing in praising God anyway. Nothing else has been able to comfort me more than those things from God-reading the Psalms, hearing old songs like this, prayer.  Nothing on this earth can numb me enough to escape the harsh realities of this year but I can feel an incredible peace and joy and it only comes from God. He is my sanity.

I am working on letting some things go. It's keeping me from His healing. It's keeping me from that peace and joy God has for me in my pain and loss. You will have to do the same. Life will never be easy nor will it be perfect. No matter what you face, seek Him girls. Make Him your life. And learn to praise God in all things. You will be stronger, happier, and even content in the worst of times. Mama knows.

To Die Daily

From a Mother's Heart to Her Daughters...







Hey girls, This was a response I penned to a Beth Moore blog. Thought I would share it with you too....

Newspaper Heading: Science is mystified: Death Comes Daily and Yet She Lives

A 50 year old lady from the state of Missouri dies daily. She acknowledges this as a choice and this has stumped the health care industry. It cannot be explained by science but its evidence, this daily death and new life, is real. And it is spreading like a virus to others!

Unlike most virus scientist have examined under the microscope, this one causes death followed by new growth. It takes the infections diseases and ailments from a persons life and restores its cells with the grace and mercy of new cells. The outward manifestations of the disease are transformed before the very eye. Strangely enough and what baffles the observer and scientist the most is that this process is controlled by its host.


Like most, this host the 50 year old Missourian, acknowledges a life full of the infections of heartache and failure. Pain from the loss of people she has adored and loved to some decision that have left consequences sometime too unbearable for her to carry weaken her. She admits her own selfishness and self centeredness has been the primary disease of her heart and mind. It has metastasized to her words and actions.
 Here lies the evidence of the viruses that take her life each and every day. More and more individuals are coming forward to be tested positive for this. There is a vaccine that will prevent the daily deaths but most are choosing not to get it. They choose the Cure.

The cure is simple to put on paper but observed to be more difficult to arrive at. The Cure is always available but not always sought out. The Cure requires a daily death, a dying to self with a physical, emotional and spiritual surrendering to the Creator and Sustainer. One can observe the host death as a reverent release and letting go. This writer observed that most days you feel as if you are on a battlefield. There are tears, sometimes there's blood, and the host can show you the scars of this daily death.

There are no words to describe the new life. You witness a calm assuring confidence in the One who resurrected the host life. There is an unspeakable joy even though the environment displays a different scene. There's a sense  that this life is not their own and there is an awakening to a greater purpose.

Science cannot explain this, the host can only live it out. You will witness it in this 50 year old Missourian. She is not alone...

Praying your heart understands this because of the reflection of my life and my heart for God.

I love you!!

Legacies

From a Mother's Heart to her Daughters....







Dear girls,
 
As you can see from my last post to you, something has gotten in the way of my writing to you. Its a time I wish we had never lived through. As a spiritual person, much less a hospice nurse, I would have thought death to be a little more easy to handle. It has devastated my world.
 
Even now, more than a month later, the tears just flow and you know your mother is not one to cry. My faith and my relationship with God has carried me through so much in life yet the devastation of losing your grandpa, my dad, has crushed me emotionally and spiritually.
 
Maybe if his sudden illness had given us time to prepare I would be stronger? Probably not. The frequent traveling of this job has not helped. I needed to be near you, near Joe. Some days I feel as if I can't catch my breath when I allow myself to think about my father, your grandpa.
 
I learned so much from my father. I wish you could have experienced him as I did. Our pastor Michael Craft a few years ago in a Father's Day message stated that often our own view of God when we are children is learned from our earthly father. I guess that's why it has been so easy for me to see God as good and loving even in the roughest of times. Grandpa will be the first to tell you he wasn't perfect but I will be the first to tell you he was the perfect daddy.
 
This is what I most remember about your grandpa:

• He loved unconditionally: You could not do anything to lose his love
• He was forgiving-he never held anything against you, even if you wronged him
• He was supportive: He may not have like or approve of your decisions but he would always be there when you saw for yourself that there were better options
• He always prayed for you-he told you so
• He was patient, kind and long-suffering
• He was attentive and could pick up on the unspoken word
• He generous, giving of his time to serve someone in need
• He was selfless and always put others first
• He was a man of commitment, be it to grandma, his family, his church, his work
• He was diligent and prudent with his life
• He was not known to swear
• He was an encourager, he only had your best interest at hand
• He was faithful, never knew a stranger and was every one's friend
• He was content with what he had and wasn't afraid to work harder for something he wanted
• He was obedient to those in authority over him
• He knew how to use discernment & sensitivity with life's issues
• He was thankful
• He was a peace-maker
• He was thoughtful and kind, even when he didn't feel like it
• He was godly and full of grace
• He was dependable
• He was fair to everyone
• He was courageous in life
• He was self-controlled and slow to anger (I don't ever remember him in an angry fit)
• He was faithful and honest
• He was understanding-he was tolerant without compromising his own beliefs
• He communicated with tenderness and authority
• He was a man of utmost integrity
• He was a respectable
• He was teachable and he was the teacher
• He lived a life of conviction and humility
• He was reverent to the things of God

As I write these things I am amazed...what a legacy. And I just realized the tears have stopped as I put this list together. Like medicine on a wound I feel healing trying to creep into my soul.
 
Can we learn from grandpa's life? Grandpa would guide us to put our focus back on Christ, the healer of our grief. When Jesus walked this earth, He was all those things above plus He was Holy-Perfect. When He left this earth He said "Follow ME"...in other words, be Jesus to this world. That is how grandpa lived his life.
 
If we could only come close to measuring up to that kind of legacy...what an honor it would be not only to grandpa but to the name of Christ. I am choosing to trust God with my grief. I am choosing to follow in my daddy's footstep and in my Heavenly Fathers footsteps. I hope my legacy to you from this day forward leaves the same kind of impression on you that your grandpa has left on us.

 

But you do see! Indeed you note trouble and grief,

    that you may take it into your hands;

the helpless commit themselves to you;

    you have been the helper of the orphan. Ps 10:14 (NRSV)

I love you...

Quiet Reflections: Undone

From a Mother's Heart to her Daughters....






Dear girls, I want you think about a word and what it means. That word is "undone".

What does it mean to you? Your first thought?

Did you think of a hair bow and how it can become undone? A shoelace? Your hair? Typically our thoughts go to something that was completed that is suddenly back to its original state. Right?

A bank account can be like that. You deposit your check and that amount becomes "undone" as you spend the money.

You spend an hour cleaning your room and within 5 minutes of having friends over it becomes "undone".

Your gas tank works the same way, right? You fill it up and eventually it becomes "undone" again.

There are some things that cannot become "undone"....your homework? The words you say? Going against a rule? Or a moral value?

To be "undone"...is it a good thing or a bad thing? Can choices we make in life change us beyond the ability to be who we were intended to be? Can our mistakes chain us down and debilitate us? Is that what makes us "undone" or is there something else more powerful to being "undone"?

Listen to this song...

Can I encourage you to look at being "undone" in a different view? A worthy view? A spiritual view? Can I implore you to consider that the best thing we could do is to be "undone" for God? Isaiah from the Bible had an opportunity to taste heaven and to see God and when he came back to his reality on earth, look how he responded....

Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! ~ Isaiah 6:5

That small glimpse of eternity broke him to his core. He realized how selfish his life had been and he was a man of God, someone spiritually strong like our pastors. If he was shamed with his life after seeing heaven, where does that leave you and me?

OUCH.....

Dare I call you and myself to live a life "undone", focusing on the eternal over the here and now while on this earth? Can we live "undone" from the chains of our past mistakes and live for God? Can we live "ruined" by the worlds standards but "undone" for eternities standards?

Oh girls, we so need to live "undone"..."ruined". We should live as if we believe Isaiah 53:5

But he was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.

Does your life demonstrate you understand the journey of Calvary and the Cross? Is He worth being "undone" for? Is He worth being "ruined" for?

 

He must increase, but I must decrease.  ~ John 3:30

Lets live this out together...for our God. I love you!

 

Quiet Reflections: From Your Heart Comes....

Letters From a Mothers Heart to her Daughters....






Hey girls, we had a situation this week in which one of you made a comment that you could not see as an inappropriate response to another person's joy. No matter how much I tried to explain the wrong, you couldn't...or wouldn't...see it. Then, literally within hours of our conversation I saw this on Pinterest:
 
Think about it. How many times do we speak without thinking? And when we do that how many times do we ask our self why we responded in that manner? I challenge you to look closely at your heart next time this happens and examine your emotions to your response.

Too often we do not want to admit we can have some raw and even ugly emotions or feelings  buried deep within our inner being. If we don't face those emotions or feelings for what they are, they will come out in one form or another.  It may be in words. It may be in a gesture. It may be evident in what we don't do or how we don't respond.

Look at Luke 6:45 as it was written:
 

"A good man produces good out of the good storeroom of his heart. An evil man produces evil out of the evil storeroom, for his mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart."  ~ Luke 6:45 (HCSB)

If your emotions and feelings for that person who gets under your skin isn't dealt with, you most like will say or do something that will cause pain on that person.

If you cannot forgive someone or a situation where you have been hurt, your response to something related to that person or situation will most likely reveal your heart in it.

How can you hold a grudge on someone and have a good heart? How can you live with unforgiveness in your heart and live with a good heart? Good and bad cannot unite or live in harmony. You have to choose which one you want to have in your life.

Even if life has been unfair, if you have been mistreated or wrongfully accused, you have to guard your heart and your mind from the bad within it. The easiest way to do that is to match it with truth. The best truth you can find for any wrong can be found in Scripture (*). Such as...

You say: I feel worthless...
God says: You are precious and loved by Me

 You are precious and are honored in my sight, and...I love you. (Isa 43:4)

You say: Everyone is against me...
God says: I am for you!

If God is for us, who can ever be against us? (Rom 8:31)

 

You say: I just want to quit...

God says: Be strong and do the work!

 Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Don’t be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you. (1 Chron 28:20)

 



 You say: I'm nothing special...
God Says: You are a masterpiece.

For [you] are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. (Eph 2:10)

 You say: I feel so ugly...
God says: I think you're beautiful.

The king [is] enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. (Ps 45:11)

You say: I'll never change...
God says: I am transforming you.

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image. (2 Cor 3:18)

You say: My life is too hard...
God says: Let Me help you.

When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. (Ps. 91:15)

You say: I can't figure things out...
God says: I will direct your steps.

 Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.(Prov. 3:5-6)

You Say: I feel so alone...
God says: I will never leave you or forsake you.

Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deut 31:6)

You say: I can't forgive myself...
God says: I forgive you.

God is faithful and reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we’ve done wrong. (1 John 1:9)

What we hold in our heart effects what we say, how we react or don't react, and how we feel about ourselves. Guard your heart with God's word and you will have so many less struggles than your mother had. I love you.







* You say/God says taken from Renee Swope's book "A Confident Heart"