Mean Girls Stink

I wonder what it would take for us women to stop hurting each other so much.  I wonder what would happen if we all just decided we'd had enough and instead of looking for ways to harm one another, we'd start looking for ways to lift one another up.  I don't know about you, but whenever I participate in gossip even with my own husband, I always feel terrible afterwards.  I hate how being mean makes me feel about myself.  And I hate even more how much I disappoint my God.  Next time when you're tempted to...

1.  walk past someone you know without speaking, make eye contact and offer a smile at the very least even and ESPECIALLY if you don't feel like it.  (CAN WE PLEASE STOP LETTING OUR "FEELINGS" DICTATE OUR ACTIONS?!)

2.  gossip, just stop and just don't.  It's wrong.  It's sinful.  It hurts.

3.  retaliate, pray first.  This isn't God's style.  And if you are a child of God, then it shouldn't be your style either.

4.  give someone a piece of your mind, think before you speak.  Our words are our biggest weapon.  We have the power to build up or cut down in just a matter of seconds.

5.  show your tail, stop and remind yourself about the example you are setting.  Do you really think today's junior high girls invented gossip?!  They learned from someone...YOU and ME.

Today's lesson...mean girls stink!!  Don't be a mean girl!!  Let's be who Jesus created us to be.  If you don't know what that looks like, just ask Him.  He'll show you.  Join me, please.  I want to make my Father proud.  If you need a friend because all of yours are just plain mean, let me know.  I would be honored to call you friend.

Need a good read?

Every now and then I come across a book that is so good I want the whole world to know about it.  And I want everyone I know to read it.  Then, I have fantasies on us all getting together in true Book Club fashion spending hours talking about "this" book that has totally rocked our worlds.  Because it's just THAT good.  Well, friends, I am reading one of "those" books...again.  It's called "Grace for the Good Girl" by Emily P. Freeman.  If you are a reader and/or are intrigued by the title, please stop by this author's website and view the promo on her new book.  There is also a place for you to sign up to win a free copy.  Go to her website by clicking...

here

Happy Reading, y'all!!
Linds

A Case of the Crazies

Here's a nugget of real life that I'm embarrassed to admit but realize somebody, somewhere out there might relate.  It's a classic case of absurdity meets truth, and it also will give all who read this an accurate viewpoint of just how insane I really am.  I still believe, though, that much is to be learned by us all sharing life with one another.  And who knows?  Perhaps through my case of the crazies, I might be in some way saving someone else from themselves.  Here it is...

Recently, one of my children achieved a huge milestone in his/her life.  When this happened everyone in our household celebrated and thanked the Almighty God for this HUGE accomplishment.  I wanted to shout it from the mountaintops.  I wanted all to know what my perfect and brilliant child had achieved.  Being the humble person that I am, I only shared the news with about 50 people and thought that was okay since I could've posted the news on facebook and even have sent a press release to the local newspaper.  See, people, humility. 

Well, last night, this prodigy child of mine relapsed.  You can imagine my shock.  I was sure this was something we had overcome, but I was sadly mistaken.  We were right back where we had been for so many weeks.  As I was sitting with my kid during this difficult moment of falling off the wagon, I heard the voice.  (Oh, come on!!  You have voices in your head, too.  Admit it!!)  The voice that told me if I would've just kept my mouth shut about my child's success this never would've happened.  This voice had the nerve to tell me that this was God's way of punishing me since pride cometh before a fall.  And if I would've kept this information to myself God would've allowed me to have continued success.  But since I didn't, our Heavenly Father (still the voice talking) decided having this much good luck was just not in the cards for me. 

Then, and just as quickly as I heard those ridiculous words uttered to me, God Almighty's voice rang like a bell in my ears.  He made it clear that that is NOT how He operates.  In fact, think about this for a moment with me.  If our God operated that way, then all that love and stuff He obsessively mentions in His Word would mean nothing.  And let's not forget that no where in Scripture does it say, "Thou, Oh Lord, is a Cause and Effect Kind Of God." 

The truth is all the good in my life has come from God.  And of course, I deserve none of it.  But He loves pouring out His love on His children.  The most important reminder I got from all of this was that if I think I have to prove myself to Him just to get Him to allow good things to happen in my life, then my thinking goes against everything in regards to the Cross.  I mean...isn't that why God sent Jesus and allowed Him to die on the cross?  So that through His resurrection I would be forgiven and set free from all of my sins and failures?  Jesus loves showing out in our lives.  And when He does we should be quick to give Him all of the credit...even when it comes to the achievements of our children.  But when people fail us (yes, even our kiddos), it's not because we have failed God.  That's just not how He works.  In my life, when times get tough, it is almost always because the Lord is trying to teach me something about Him and/or help someone else learn a lesson or two about His sovereignty.

So, there you go.  Welcome to Crazy Town where I am officially the Mayor.  My mind is full of all kind of weird things.  Seriously, if I shared just a few of them, you would be afraid.  Very afraid.  But praise God.  Because in this moment, my absurdity met the Truth.  And the Truth set me free. 

Big Like a Hurricane. Small Like a Gnat.

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." -1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)

Life is full of trials.  This we all know.  Our trials come in many shapes and sizes and come like waves in and out through the many seasons of life.  It's funny to me how we find our strength.  When a trial of epic proportion hits our lives, we muster up strength we didn't know we had, and although the pain is deep, we somehow make it through the hurricane and look back and realize that wasn't as hard as we thought it would be.  Then, little trials hit our lives.  Little and obnoxious trials that feel and sound like a gnat flying around in our ear.  Sometimes it's the little trials that really get under our skin.  Sometimes the little trials cause us to throw ourselves on the floor and throw a temper tantrum that makes a three year old's tantrum look like a cute gesture compared to ours.  Either way, a trial is a trial and God's Word guarantees us that life is full of them.  But the Lord is clear on how we should handle them.  We are to rejoice and know that each trial increases our faith which is worth more than gold.

Dear Father,
As a mother of three, I am always tired.  My exhaustion is nothing in comparison to what you felt and faced on the cross.  In this phase of life, my trials are in the form of sleep deprivation and frustration as a result of adjusting to life with three kids.  Help me to remember today that when I'm tempted to throw myself on the floor kicking and screaming to instead throw myself upon You.  Give me the strength to rejoice when times get hard and to be ever mindful of my ever growing and ever changing faith.  Just like my faith, You, Father, are worth more than gold.  And I want more of you.  In Jesus' Name, Amen.

A New Adventure

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." -Psalm 37:4

Dear Father,
Tomorrow our lives will be forever changed...again.  Tomorrow, we will welcome and embrace our 3rd child, a precious little girl that you have entrusted us to love and raise.  As I go into tomorrow, my emotions are all over the place.  There is a bittersweet feeling that comes with the ending of this phase of our lives and the beginning of a new path you have already predetermined for our family.  I place every feeling I am having now and will have between now and tomorrow at your feet.  I ask you to take over and do what you do best.  It is such a relief AND a huge fear to know that I am not in control, that you and you alone, will determine what tomorrow holds for us.  So, as we begin this journey with our 3rd child, our very 1st daughter, I give it all to you and ask you to have your way. 

This world has so many views and expectations of women.  I ask that our little girl will find her identity and value in you, Jesus, her Savior.  I pray that as she grows up in this home, that she will experience you everyday and that her daddy and me would reflect you in our lives everyday.  And when we mess up, because we know that we will, that you will be quick to convict so that as her parents we can show her the miraculous and healing power of your forgiveness.  May she always know that you want a relationship with her, that you are the only one who can fill the voided areas of her life.  That she will realize early on what you did for her on that cross and that she will want to spend her days loving you, serving you, honoring you, and telling others about what you've done for her and them.  Protect her from the ways of the world.  Help her to overcome temptation.  And when she fails, Father, come out of Heaven for her, scoop her up, dust her off, and embrace her so that she knows you will always love her and that there is nothing she can do that is unforgivable.  Help her to know that every step she takes in this life is part of the plan you have for her life and that her history and destiny are rooted in the same...Jesus Christ.  May we as her parents teach her and show her that there is so much more to you than rules, than church, than Sunday School, than VBS, than youth camps, than mission trips.  Yes, all of those things are important and will give her fundamental facts and information that she will need in her walk with you.  But what really matters is the interaction between her heart and yours.

I pray that as her mother, I can teach her what it means to be a woman of noble character.  I pray that the love I have for you and your word will be contagious to her and that she will catch it and it will spread like wild fire in her heart.  I pray that she will see early the importance of knowing your word and hiding it in her heart.  And as I take pride in taking care of our home and my children, that she will see the tremendous value in being the caretaker and caregiver of her future home. 

I pray that she becomes a daddy's girl from the moment she enters this world.  That she will know right away how much her daddy loves her and how much he wants her.  I pray that you would help her daddy to teach her how to be loved by a man.  That he will be able to instill in her a sense of value and worthiness.  That she will learn from him how to be loved by a husband and what to expect from her husband.  I pray that he can teach her to be strong and to make smart decisions.  And when the time is appropriate, help him to help her understand that it is good and ok to be a butt-kicking woman as long as her actions reflect you.  I pray that from me she will learn how to be a lady full of class and grace.  I pray that she will honor you by taking care of and covering up her body.  And as her parents, shield us from putting too high of expectations on her and never once allow us to live vicariously through her and her two brothers.  You have a plan for her life.  Use us to only guide her to and through that plan.

For her future husband, Father, protect him wherever he is.  I realize he may not even be born yet, but you know who he is.  Raise him up to be a man of God, one who loves you, seeks you, and honors you with every ounce of his being.  Lord, protect our girl from those who want to cause her harm.  I know you've already assigned a guardian angel to her side for I have felt that throughout this pregnancy.  Please allow that angel to always be by her side and to shield her from any danger that comes her way.  Ultimately, Father, she is yours.  She belonged to you, first.  You created her.  She is merely on loan to her daddy and me.  Help us to take our role as her parents very seriously.  Lead, guide and direct us every step of the way.

Thank you for our grace gift, our precious baby girl.  We love you and are ready to take this adventure with you, Jesus.  It's in your name I ask all these things, Amen.

Hey! You're sitting in my pew!!

I can't seem to get past a statement I heard a pastor say last week.  He said, "It's all fun and games until it costs me something."  He, being a pastor, was of course directing this statement to the people of his church.  And after hearing it, I started asking myself what that exactly meant to me and how did it apply to my church.  Our Sunday School class was discussing it NOT in great detail but just kind of tossing the idea around, and I, without hesitation, got on my soap box.  (I hate when I do that.)  But I have to admit that the thoughts I had swirling around in my head pertaining to this particularly statement were not new thoughts to me.  In fact, I had been thinking about this...not knowing really what I was thinking about...for a while now.

In regards to church and in regards to Christianity, in general, don't we do this ALL of the time?  I mean...aren't we okay with something until it starts costing us something?  Like our time and/or our money?  For example, we'll keep attending the same church week in and week out UNTIL we show up one Sunday and someone's sitting in our pew.  Or God forbid, someone has parked in our parking spot.  Or what about the Sundays when your pastor presents a challenge to you?  Like for example, would you be willing to seek out one person this week and share Christ with him or her?  Wait!  What?!  You mean I actually have to talk to someone about my faith?

Please excuse my sarcasm and please know that I, more than anyone, have experienced all of these feelings and emotions when I've been asked to step out of my comfort zone as a Christian.  Haven't we all?  But something the Lord is really showing me lately is that we are ALL called to step out of our comfort zone.  If we call ourselves Christians...if we claim to be a follower of Christ....then it is our duty, our responsibility to "go and preach the Gospel to every creature."  (The Great Commission...Mark 16:15)  So many of us excuse ourselves from this responsibility by simply saying,

"Oh, that is not MY calling.  That's just not me.  I wouldn't know what to say.  Someone else can do that....share Christ with others.  Now, who do I make my check out to?"

See, it's quite easy to write a check or stick cash in an envelope.  And there are definitely times when God calls us to do just that.  There's nothing wrong with supporting missions or another person's ministry.  But if that's all we choose to do, then we really are missing the mark.  And I would be even bold to say that if that is all we choose to do, then we really aren't doing what Christ has called us to do.  You have a mission field right where you are...your home, your neighborhood, your job, your circle of friends.  Everywhere you go is an opportunity to be Christ and share Christ with someone else.  And it doesn't have to start with you hitting them upside their head with your Bible or putting a Gospel track in their hands.  It simply starts with a conversation, a friendship, a connection, a relationship.  Just remind yourself how Jesus first revealed Himself to you.  For me, He became my friend.  And slowly, overtime, He started filling voids in my life.  He became my Heavenly Daddy.  He became my Secret Keeper.  He became my Savior.  He became my Redeemer.

I don't know if any of this is making sense.  Heck, I'm still trying to make sense of it for myself.  I just know the Lord has a special calling on my life.  I have purpose.  SO DO YOU!  And that purpose is centered around telling the world about who He is and what He's done in my life so that He, too, can do the same in others.  Right now, my mission field is my home.  Tomorrow, the Lord may grow my mission field.  Until then, I will make Him proud with what He's given me.  Or I will try my hardest.  I may not ever go across the world to tell others about Christ, but then again, the Lord may call me to do just that one day.  You see?  I don't have to wait until He gives me specific orders.  He's already done that.  He did that on the day I surrendered my life to Him.  It became my duty, my responsibility, my calling to tell others about Him.  AND THE SAME IS TRUE FOR YOU!  As a follower of Christ, I am not my own.  And neither are you if that is what you call yourself and really mean it.

You've been commissioned.  What are you waiting for? 

"Your very lives are a letter that ANYONE can read by just LOOKING at you.  Christ himself wrote it - not with ink, but with God's living Spirit; not chiseled into stone, but carved into human lives - AND WE PUBLISH IT." -2 Corinthians 3:3 (The Message)

The Rainbow After the Storm

Life was clicking on along.  Things seemed to be running pretty smooth.  Then, crisis struck.  In an instant, my world was rocked.  My fear was staring me dead in the face.  And my God never left my side.

In a nutshell, that is what the last couple of weeks have looked like in my life.  A couple of Saturdays ago, I tried to call my mother's cell phone and her dearest friend answered it letting me know my mother was in the ER at the local hospital.  My mother had a kidney stone that was too large to pass and had become infected.  Over the next 24 hours, my sister and I stood by my mother's side in the ICU and had to endure words like low blood pressure, sepsis, life support, and possible death.  My mother desperately needed a procedure where a stint would be put in in order to drain her infected kidney, but her blood pressure was entirely too low for her to undergo anesthesia.  Her body had also become septic.  The longer the sepsis stayed in her body, the higher the risk of her losing her life became.  As the anesthesiologist described it, "We were stuck between a rock and a hard place."  Mom's urologist delivered the difficult news.  After explaining to us what was going on in her body, I asked him, "What does this mean as far as putting her life in jeopardy?".  He looked me straight in the eyes and said, "Either way, her life is in jeopardy."

There it was.  Out there for my sister and I to take in.  True life in the rawest of form.  As my sister and I went back into our mother's room in the ICU, Hannah, my sister, asked me to pray.  And I couldn't do it.  I was able to throw some words up.  I don't remember what they were.  And I'm pretty sure they didn't make it past the ceiling.  But in my heart, I didn't know what to say.  I couldn't put an intelligent sentence together.  All I knew was that I needed my mom.  At 61, I knew it was too soon for her life to end.  With that in mind, over and over in my heart, I begged the Lord, "Please, God, not now.  Please, Lord, this is too much.  Keep her alive, Father.  We need her."

And sometimes, friends, that's all it takes.  Just a few words.  And when life is too difficult to even muster up words, Jesus knows our hearts.  Romans 8:26 says, "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans."  And that is just what Jesus did for me.  He interceded to His Father, my God, on my mother's behalf.  Bless God.  The Lord heard our cries.  And my mother is now home.  Alive.  Recovering.  Healing.

It was a long road.  I tell you the truth.  After an interesting round of ICU psychosis, the physical effects of the big-gun antibiotics, and hearing loss in her left ear as a result of those big-gun antibiotics, my mother still has a ways to go before she's 100 percent.  But she's alive.  And as a result of this difficult time in our lives, we all love each other a little bit more, love our God a whole lot more, and were able to experience the overwhelming doses of the love He has for us.  That, to me, is what makes Him such a miraculous mix of mystery and beauty.  It is true.  There is so much purpose in crisis, as my favorite Bible teacher Beth Moore would say.  He, indeed, makes the rough places smooth.  He, indeed, walks through fire with us.  And He, indeed, never lets go.  We experienced a thunder storm of epic proportion in our lives, but we now know the beauty and miracles that come with the Rainbow at the end of the storm.  I will be forever grateful for that.

"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." -Lamentations 3:22-23