Wake up my Heart!

Today I'm keeping it simple. Breakdown of Scripture. I love how the Word of God can be the best teacher there is...how something you've read over and over can be made new. How your eyes can be opened. How one word makes a difference.  Ephesians 5:8-10 reads: For you were once darkness but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.  When I think about Ephesians 5, I think about wives submitting to their husbands and husbands loving their wives like Christ loved the church and all that jazz. I never noticed the first half! And then....God :)  You know how when you read, your brain sometimes inserts words to complete a sentence? Well, when I read those verses quickly, my brain always put in an extra word so I read, "Once you were IN darkness, but now you are IN light." NO. Once we WERE darkness. Not in it. We were IT. We were not jus...

This Christmas season I've been doing a lot of reminiscing on Christmas' past. Specifically last Christmas. Last Christmas, I was praying for a miracle of epic proportions. I didn't get it. And my heart of hearts knew I wouldn't. I remember being at Christmas Eve service with my then husband and my son. Standing in the middle of the two of them, singing Silent Night, with those little candles that drip wax all over...I remember thinking, "This...this is my miracle." And I cried. Just as I am crying now. That was the last time I was surrounded by those two Nathan's, singing to the Lord. I still have the one...and let me tell you, I treasure that precious boy that God gifted to me like you wouldn't believe. That moment was my miracle. And just like Mary, treasuring and pondering things in her heart, I've kept that memory in my heart and I don't foresee it going anywhere. And it doesn't have to. Because it was precious. And it was for Jesus....

Friends. Since "D" day, if you will, I have been pretty rotten. It's like that day hit and I fell into a valley. Which doesn't really make any sense because up to that point I had been pursued by God like I have never been before. What happened? I happened. I don't think He stopped, I think my stubborn heart, which wants stupid things, got in the way of me noticing. Oswald Chambers would probably call me a "spiritual prig" for my thoughts, because he calls us all that, quite frequently! :) (note - this is a long post, if you want the short version - just scroll to the bottom!) But it's Thanksgiving, which could NOT come at a better time! Do you want to get out of a funk? Count your blessings. And then tell God about those blessings! My favorite song from my favorite Christmas movie has these lyrics: "If you're worried and you can't sleep, just count your blessings instead of sheep. Then you'll fall asleep counting your blessings....

Today was my "D" day. Divorce. I hate that word. I would hate it even if it was called something else. But it cannot be escaped! Today I've been grieving for that man and woman who walked down the aisle in that bed and breakfast 9.5 years ago. They're both gone. Replaced with people with "adult" experiences and a life that led us to a direction that wasn't on my original map. But this direction showed up on God's map for our lives because free will is a real and true thing. It is glorious and horrible. And with one choice comes many others. And so directions and roads show up where they didn't first exist. But where can they ALL lead? What does God want? Ultimately things to happen for his Glory. And so my road will lead there. In the most unexpected of ways; through something He hates. Divorce. For God's glory. If those two things don't really work together in your mind, I have an article that may be helpful (but you'd have to talk...

I don't often understand the concept of grace. It's been explained a million times, but it doesn't CLICK. I talk about. I know I have been given it. I know I don't deserve it. But what is it?! I still can't tell you clearly ;) but when I listen to the Sidewalk Prophets song "You Love me Anyway," for just a minute, I glimpse it. I am the thorn in your crown      But You love me anyway I am the sweat from Your brow      But You love me anyway I am the nail in Your wrist      But You love me anyway I am Judas' kiss      But You love me anyway See now I am the man who yelled out from the crowd For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking ground Yes then I turned away with a smile on my face With this sin in my heart, tried to bury Your grace And then alone in the night I still call out for You So ashamed of my life, my life, my life...But You love me anyway I weep. Not just cry; ugly weep just about every time I hear this so...

Most of this is from a post I didn't publish publicly back on March 6th. Apparently that was the last day I broke. As it happened again this Monday, I was searching for a quote from Ann Voskamp and found my own words from March: It was like my heart was choking. It couldn't breathe. And because it couldn't breathe; I couldn't breathe. So I fell apart and cried and I couldn't put myself back together again. Not even with all the King's men. Not right away. Ann Voskamp says it best: "Old scars can break open like fresh wounds and your unspoken broken can start to rip you wide open and maybe the essence of all the questions is: how in the holy name of God do you live with your one broken heart?" Heartbreak is a tricky thing. It sounds from the word like it could be a "once and done" kind of a thing. Like once your heart is broken, it simply IS broken, so it can't happen again (until, over time, it heals). However, even before it heals,...

It's been an interesting week. God started doing some digging in my life. Which is always good; but not always pain free :). It came to the forefront, that like most of you have discovered, forgiveness is hard. Forgiving others...and ourselves. And perhaps one of the reasons is because identifying the root of hurt is hard. We can't really forgive if we don't know what needs to be forgiven.We can't really let go when we don't know what we need to let go of. In some crazy way as I'm trying to figure this mess out, God started filling my heart and my mind with all these quibbles of his love and mercy and it was He, in his glorious love, that showed me what I was looking for. I keep hearing this voice tell me, "I never asked you to be be perfect. I never expected you to be perfect. You CAN'T be perfect. I never made you feel less-than, or not enough. I knit you together in your mother's womb. I sent my son to DIE for you. I fought for you. I wanted yo...

Today was a Monday. A normal homeschool day; with moments of true joy. My son narrated a story and I wrote it down. About a Little Mouse who went on a journey to three different habitats and ended up running away from a burrowing owl. He read a book about blood because honestly, he wanted to prove me wrong, but the point is he PICKED UP A BOOK and read it on his own. And this afternoon he was a little upset about spelling so he asked to play the piano. And then he made up a song and wrote it down so he can remember it. Ah, my heart. My 7.5 year old wrote a song :) How happy does it make me that he loves the piano and that it is an emotional outlet for him? Today was a Monday. A normal, screw-up-kind of day. I forgot to put something on the calendar that I should have done months ago. I yelled because my son wasn't being grateful enough for what he had...he always seems to want "more." I didn't finish my to-do list. Do I ever? Today was a Monday. A God-has-big-merc...

You guys. It is a messed up world. It is a fallen world. There is badness/sadness just about everywhere I look. One of my absolute favorite fellow college orientation leaders was on a canoe trip this past weekend, stepped off a sand bar, got caught up in a current and drowned. Drowned. Leaving behind a wife and 2 kiddos. I have friends going through cancer and divorce and the drama that goes beyond what one would expect in normal day-to-day life. And all of that is enough to overwhelm a person. Completely. The other day for a moment I was just that. Overwhelmed. I messaged (notice that - not even texted, FB messaged for goodness' sake) a friend and I'm going to steal her idea for what she does when the going gets tough. She makes a choice to CHOOSE to believe that God is good. That choice doesn't make sunshine appear on a cloudy day or make the hurt go away or the questions stop. But that choice works on the heart. That choice says, "God, I'm going to trust t...

19  We love because he first loved us.   20  Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister  is a liar.  For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen,  cannot love God, whom they have not seen.   21  And he has given us this command:  Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister. 1 John 4:19-21 In the past couple of months I have noticed myself saying "I love you" to people I hardly know, or people I have known for a while but never told them that. They may think I'm nuts. I'm not. I'm just overflowing. :) God has called us to love our brothers and sisters in the Lord because HE FIRST LOVED US. His love overflows, so our love must too. It's humorous to me because this "loving" isn't something I made a conscious decision to do. It happened. All of a sudden, when I hug people, "I love you" just pops out.  It's funny how simple this idea is when I really think about it. There ...

Here's another post on a glimpse into my soul :) My whole life I have had self-esteem issues. Not because anything particular happened, I've just never been over-confident, or really even confident of much. This is one of the reasons that thoughts of this new "single" life have scared me. Nathan was my advocate. When I didn't have the confidence to speak up - in regards to so many things, he would speak up for me. When this all started to go down, that was a big fear of mine. My biggest advocate was going away. How was I going to get over that? How was I going to lose my advocate and somehow GAIN confidence? Wouldn't I just instead, enter a downward slope that led to even less confidence? Isn't that what the enemy was hoping? Let's have God enter the picture and see how things change :). When He isn't in the picture, all those negative questions are so loud in my head I can't move. But when he IS in the picture, it all seems to get better...

This weekend, I was watching Transformers Rescue Bots with my little man and loved some of the conversation in the show to the point I had to rewind it :).  One of the bots was a little big for his britches and commented, "I saved the day!" Another, the rule follower - the never any gray - kind of bot responded: "No you did not. You assisted the day when the day was not in need of assistance." Friends, that's me most every day! Doing what I think is my best, going along, trying to control what happens and when it succeeds I think - YES. I did so good. And God is shaking his head up there thinking, "My love, you assisted the day when the day was not in any need of assistance." Do any of you do that? Try and take charge of your life, or others? Do you try to butt up in there and "assist" when what you really need to do is step back and let God work? I feel like at the end of the day the reason for all of my "assisting" is t...

I'm in the middle of a Beth Moore study on Believing God and this week my mission is to be on the lookout for miracles. I didn't have to look far. In this time of craziness, when despair would be easy and lots of other negative things justified, I feel ridiculously blessed. I'm getting better at finding beauty in the broken. And this is possible largely due to a simple change in my prayer life. Before I get out of bed in the morning I ask God to make me new. Every day. And thanks to a word study on the different constructs of "create", when I pray that, I'm asking God for the "BAM - poof into existence" kind of new. I want a pure heart and a steadfast mind. Every day. New. Sorry for that repetition, but repetition is exactly what I need. This lady is often mind-led instead of spirit-led and if I don't try to get myself in that "I am the Lord's" mentality every day, it doesn't happen. Have you ever been told by someone ...

Well hello strangers! Here's my ramblings of the evening: at church on Sunday. The pastor said something small - but magnificent. We are not human "DO-ings" we are human "BE-ings." Ah. So simple. His point was this. Churches these days (and the world most of the time) like to tell us we need Jesus AND something else. Our works, mainly. But that isn't biblical. It's the opposite of Biblical. According to that source, Jesus is ALL we need. So, pardon my poor grammar here, it isn't what we DO that serves to get us into heaven, it is simply who we BE. And who we believe in. And it is that Jesus component, at least in my life, that tends to get lost. I focus on "being a good person" (and failing most of the time, mind you). I focus on what Paul in Scripture tells me. Or what I learn from the Old Testament. Those things are all great, but who is this Jesus and how do I focus on HIM? As I was reading today in John, I came across that famous ...

Yesterday as I was listening to K-Love, a woman was telling her story of attempted suicide and the healing that has taken place since. I usually don't listen to such stories, but I did. And at the end she said this: My season was not my story. I think I screamed a little when she said that and went "YES!" Then I repeated the phrase to myself until I got to a place I could write it down. Friends, your season is not your story, unless you a) want it to be or b) you get stuck. I think I need to focus on the getting stuck. Stuck is easy. We all too often go through something and then remember that something and then we can't STOP thinking about that something and we relive it over and over. I heard once that every time you repeat something that happened to you, in your own head, or others, it's like it's happening AGAIN. If you are a person who needs support and you tell 5 friends what you're going through, that's 5 times you have to relive your pain...

You guys. I am scared to write this post, which I envisioned writing in October. But it's been on my mind and last night I felt the Lord's prompting to WRITE IT NOW. I felt like a teenager because I verbally said. "Fine, but I can't right now (going to work), I will in the morning." So...here goes. I'm pretty sure you know I am going through a divorce. And what better time than that to offer marriage advice? (I gotta keep this light - so pardon my humor). The man I married wrote this in my engagement letter: "The best part about us is that as long as we are submitting to Jesus, the relationship won't be about us...it will be about him and how we can glorify him in serving each other." Enter the guilt and the water works. Friends, somewhere along the way we stopped submitting to Jesus in our marriage. Somehow He became not the focus. As happens in a lot of marriages - things change. Sometimes our focus was each other, sometimes my health, so...

Well, world, I may have a new life verse. And room on the back of my right arm to get it tattooed :). Anywho...it is Romans 15:13. "May the God of hope fill you with ALL joy and peace as you trust in him so that you may OVERFLOW with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit." Emphasis placed on those two words is mine. Where this verse has been my whole life, I cannot tell you. Well, actually I can. It's in Romans Chapter 15. Ha. I'm snarky today! But that is one of the things that is amazing about our God - and why it is important to be IN the word at all times. At different times of your life, or heck, even different times of the day, different things will jump out at you. Or the same things will jump out at you, but in new ways. In this time of my life I am growing, growing, growing, in the Lord. And thanks to the words above, I am trying to be filled with ALL joy and peace and have myself OVERFLOW with hope. That image, of overflowing with hope is pretty amazin...

Note: this is a draft of an old post that I wrote and never published! Today it seemed to need to be posted :) Scripture of the Day: 1 Kings 19:11-13 11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13 When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” ************* Do you ever have days where you can't see the Lord trying to communicate with you and others when he screams his presence? I have been thinking about these verses the last couple of days. I have been wondering o...

Friends, I am knee deep in the 1 Kings. Well, maybe ankle deep, as this was in Chapter 3. :) Solomon got to make a request to God. And his request was brilliant: "Give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong." I read it and was cut to the quick. That is my desire for my kiddo - that he would be discerning and able to distinguish between right and wrong. I've been trying to write about this for a while and failing, so I figured out all I can do is pray about it. Here is a prayer for him - and all our children...no matter their age! Heavenly Father God, please help us lead our children. Through you, help us build a foundation of right and wrong. Help us show our kids how to be discerning. It is a hard world. There seems to be less black and white and more gray. But almost right IS still wrong. God, I'm not sure how to teach my child that. You, however, are the ultimate parent. God, I give you my child. I pray ...

This year for Father's Day I'm going to attempt to lay out what I believe are the love languages of the father figures in my life :) Let's see how I do! *Note, after writing, this has been so fun! If you'd like to take a gander at the love languages of those in your life, and then want to check, here is an on-line quiz:  http://www.5lovelanguages.com/profile/ First of all, my pops, Tony. Zany and tattooed, buff and bald, to the eye of the beholder he appears one thing. But to those who know his heart, he is quite another! It is not until the past months when I have lived with him that I truly see how much this man loves his children (and everyone). Whether it involves ordering shirts online that fit his kiddos various interests, or delivering freshly popped pop-corn to my brother, or grilling out to provide food for lunches...my dad loves to do things for his kids. And his siblings. And his mom. And his co-workers. And his friends. My dad is an acts of service man. ...

Gotta have Faith! What will it tell you about my life if you know the voice I hear singing that lyric is Fred Durst instead of George Michael? Ahhh. High school! Anywho... Faith is my new favorite topic because I am just glimpsing what it is. My own faith is growing. And because it is growing, my relationship with God is growing. Friends, I started a bible study on the Armor of God (Priscilla Shirer's) earlier this year. And like most studies, I started, but stopped half way through. I stopped right before I got to the shield of faith. Which, crazy enough, was in God's perfect timing because my ideas on faith are drastically different than they were earlier this year. My revelation is this: I had faith. As in "I have faith that God can do _____." The transition is now, "I have faith in God. Period." Friends, I think I finally trust Him :). Or...I trust Him more now than I ever have before. I still freak out sometimes! Silly human that I am. Months...

At points in our lives, our personal advocates change...and sometimes in the change, there is a void. Logically, what should fill the void? Jesus. And what does Jesus tell me about advocates? "If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever--the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."(John 14:15-17) And furthermore, "But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:26-27) Friends, we have an advocate...stronger than any person...with a direct line to the Father. This advocate is the Spirit of truth and it has the ...

*disclaimer - this post is about bad moods - I'm not downplaying depression or severe emotional trauma or anything like that, so please don't take my words to mean that! My, how I love Oswald Chambers! As I go through My Utmost for His Highest, he is fast becoming a man I would love to have dinner with. Which is not possible, obviously, but through this post I am going to have an imaginary conversation with the deceased! Here are some lines from his May 20th quibble: "Moods never go by praying, moods go by kicking. A mood nearly always has its seat in the physical condition, not in the moral. It is a continual effort not to listen to the moods which arise from a physical condition; never submit to them for a second. We have to take ourselves by the scruff of the neck and shake ourselves, and we will find that we can do what we said we could not. The curse with most of us is that we won't ." There you have it: moods don't leave us by praying, they l...

Courage. I believe my mom started using this word because Patch and Kayla from Days of Our Lives signed the word at their wedding when one was beat up / ill / something?! My mom would have to verify. Did anyone else our there grow up watching VHS recordings Mon-Fri with their parents? :) Anywho...courage got those two through some hard times. I first became sick when I was 9 and with more procedures and surgeries than I care to focus on here and before and during each, my mom would ALWAYS tell me to have courage. Now I'm in a new phase of life and that's still the word she uses. I say it. I like the idea. God seems to like this idea too! You may have noticed that I've been using Joshua 1:9 a lot of late: "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous..."  Again, I love those words, but they haven't gotten to my heart until recently. The idea of courage, however, keeps coming into my life...so I have begun to think I should pay attention! Now, enter ...

This is going to be quite different from my Mother's Day post last year, in which I thanked all my "mama's," but then again, it's a different sort of year! Because of my present circumstances, I have a whole new appreciation for motherhood. Before ever getting pregnant, there were fears of the possibility of carrying a child to term. Then my baby was HERE and I was a mom. But now, every other weekend, my baby is NOT here with me and for a couple of days, that label somehow feels removed. And that is a heart hurt. A heavy one. Last night, we were watching a Winnie the Pooh movie of all things and the whole movie was themed on this quote from Christopher Robin. He was trying to tell Pooh that they wouldn't always be together, but couldn't quite do it, so he said this: "If ever there is a tomorrow when we're not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe. You are stronger than you seem. And you are smar...

God is working on me this evening...and I sense it is because someone out there needs to read this and He won't let me rest until I do!  Have you ever been mistreated? Felt unworthy? Or unloved? Or worse...unlovable? I have a feeling we could all say yes... Let's go deeper. Have you ever gotten through those situations and never gotten an apology for being made to feel that way, or for having been treated that way?  Sometimes apologies don't come.  On good days, I know that lack of apology says more about the person who did the hurting than it does of me. But. On the bad days, the lack of apology says many things from the negative voices inside my head. You are so insignificant, you aren't worthy of an apology. You deserved that treatment. Because of how little value you are, of course they treated you this way...why should they feel bad? You are worthless.  Ouch. Those thoughts can destroy you if you let them. So when they start, I turn in...

Well here's a different post for you! And a confession. I love the Old Testament. I feel like through those words I have gotten to know God very well. However, the New Testament is often harder for me to read and although I've done it several times, at the end of the day, this Jesus fellow is still someone I feel like I don't know awesomely well. And how can I get to know Him well, unless I study? I have tried bible studies and commentaries and nothing has really gotten through! I get glimpses, but it's head knowledge - not heart knowledge. But then. Those glorious, "but then's!" Priscillia Shirer introduced this idea of the 5 P's of reading Scripture...and an idea was born! Here's the idea. When you read the Bible: 1) Position yourself to hear from God (get rid of distractions / pray) 2) Pore over the passage an paraphrase the major points 3) Pull out the spiritual principles 4) Pose the question (Do I believe such and such, or Am I doing...

As I was reading A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 this afternoon (which is AMAZING), I read the verses from Philippians that are so often quoted, "I have the ability to be content in any and every situation." Which hit me like a ton of bricks. Just this morning I was saying to myself, "I HATE this...hate it. It's not what I asked for me...it's not what I asked for my family." So there you have it. A stretchable situation. Funny how we never seem to run out of those :). I need to learn to be content in the middle of this situation...which happens to be one I had hoped never to be in. How in the world can one be content in situations we dread? Grateful for suffering I can understand. Even joy in suffering I can understand. But contentment? Until an hour ago, my heart went EEEEEKS! NOOOOOOOOOO! My heart is hard. And I am stubborn. The glorious book states: "...[it] is made possible by the unrelenting effort of Christ on our behalf. How He works to clear...

Here's a poem, inspired by this painting yesterday. I haven't written a poem in probably 15 years! Eeks! But this one needed to come out... I See you There I see you there and can’t but think…you’re there because of me. Hanging, with thorns dyed red for all the world to see. And as you died, the curtain fell and suddenly human kind was free… Free to talk to the Father. Free to believe in the Son. Free to live eternally. Free from a battle won. Free to hope and be washed clean. Free to never have to run. “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me,” Is what the Scriptures say. But sometimes I can’t hear and have a silent plea: “Lord Jesus, I am your sheep. Help me hear you over the cacophony.” The world is loud and wants to be my guide and my light. But the world is full of dark and seems to not comprehend right. Jesus, be my hope. Be my shepherd. Protect me. Hold this sheep tight. “He is Risen!” “He is Risen Indeed!” ...